


In My Mind

by viewpoint



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Barista Lee Minho | Lee Know, Coffee, Coffee Shops, College, Crying, Dancer Hwang Hyunjin, Felix is a sweetheart, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hallucinations, Heartbreak, Holding Hands, Hyunjin is a sweetheart too, Kissing, M/M, Mathematician Kim Seungmin, Rapper Seo Changbin, Social Anxiety, Study Date, Swearing, aussie boys bromance, felix and chan are best bros, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29198049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viewpoint/pseuds/viewpoint
Summary: Chris was born with super-intelligence, which allowed him to learn any skill just in a few hours. His brain couldn't keep up with all his knowledge, so it stared creating hallucinations, that carried his abilities.He was born and raised in Australia. He lived a peaceful life, a busy one, but also one that rarely changed. That was, at least, until he met a boy, who just barely moved to Sydney.
Relationships: Bang Chan & Han Jisung | Han, Bang Chan/Han Jisung | Han
Comments: 14
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the idea of super-intelligence is taken from Brandon Sanderson's "Legion"!

He didn’t know why, but it was like a rule now. Chris was too early, and Felix was late. To be honest, Chris got quite used to it at this moment, he didn’t even mind that he had to wipe all the tables alone and prepare everything for work. What he did mind though, was the fact that he had to spend that time alone with Minho’s annoying ass. 

“You’re doing it wrong,” he said when Chris started cleaning the coffee machine. 

“How can I do the cleaning wrong?” He mumbled not really caring about Minho’s opinion. 

“You know exactly how, and you’re doing it just to piss me off,” Minho answered. Chris fought the desire to smile. 

“Everything pisses you off, Minho,” he said, still not paying attention to his remarks. 

“No,  _ you  _ piss me off,” Minho said. “And this one right there,” he added right away, pointing at Felix, who just entered the coffee shop. 

“Chris,” he heard the said villain behind his back. “So sorry, mate.” 

“No worries,” Chris answered, waving his hand dismissively, and finally put his apron on knowing it’s the time to open the place.

“It’s Monday, though,” Felix spoke again. “Aren’t you free on Mondays? What’s with college?” 

“Don’t worry about it.” Chris tried to cut the conversation. He really didn’t need him to give him lessons. He knew what he was doing. Or at least he hoped he did.

“I do worry when you skip college to work, dude,” Felix continued. 

“Tell him to worry about that shitty coffee he makes,” he heard Minho interjecting. 

Chris didn’t answer Minho’s remark, he just furrowed his eyebrows. He tried not to even look at him, but Felix noticed something was wrong anyway. 

“Is it Minho? He’s being mean to me again?” Felix asked. 

Chris wanted to deny, but he knew there was no use in that. Felix knew him too well.

“Sorry, Lix,” he said, resigned. “You know I can’t control it.”

Felix just sent him a reassuring smile.

“And you know I don’t mind,” he said. “Just don’t stress over it, he only plays cold.”

He didn’t know how it happened that Felix knew his projections as well as Chris did, or sometimes even better. He was glad for it, though. Sometimes, he couldn’t stand his own head.

“I know…” Chris said. “I’m just sorry, I really hate him sometimes.” 

“Don’t say that, it’s not true,” his friend answered, smiling kindly again. Of course, sweet angel Felix. “You love Minho, no matter how much he annoys you sometimes.” 

“That’s right,” Minho added. He was standing next to Felix, with his arms crossed and a silly smile on his face. Although Felix couldn’t even know he was close to him. 

Minho appeared in his head shortly before he started working in the coffee shop. Chris was a beginner musician, a student, and a person who always tried to stay independent. Those three things were coming together only to create a huge financial disaster. His parents weren’t very supportive of his life choices anyway, so it’s not like he could seek their help. What they saw as ruining his potential, he understood as realising his passion. He didn’t regret majoring in music, and he didn’t regret focusing on music instead of science.

Renting a studio in Sydney was pretty expensive, though. He had no other choice than to find a part-time job since his scholarship could only do as much as ensuring his survival. It was the first job to him, and sometimes he was just so dumb, so fucking dumb. 

He didn’t know how it happened, but he just assumed he was expected to know everything about coffee. Everything. Literally.

This was how Minho appeared. 

“Besides...” he heard Felix speak again, and it made him come back to reality. “I remember how you told me that he was pretty handsome.” That stupid winky face was glued to his stupid head, and at that moment Chris really wanted to punch it. 

He heard a massive burst of laughter from Minho, and he could feel himself blushing. 

“You said that?” Minho asked excited, imagining the future mockery. “You have a thingy for me, Christopher?” 

“I didn’t say that,” he mumbled, resigned, even though he knew it was pointless now. 

“Oh, you totally did, you can’t lie to me,” he continued with a shit-eating grin. “Our Chris likes me better than he’d like to admit,” he cooed right after. 

“Oh shut up you witty asshole!” Chris yelled at him, turning around to face the cash register at the same time. But what he saw there, was a surprised customer who apparently had entered the coffee shop without them noticing. Chris didn’t have to wonder if the customer actually noticed that Chris wasn’t insulting Felix but the air itself. He met his wide-opened eyes before he turned on his heel and left. 

Chris and Felix were just standing there staring at the empty space for a few long seconds before Felix turned around to draw another line on what he called ‘crazy stats’ paper.

Chris just sighed. 

“How am I standing this month?” He asked. 

“Seven,” Felix answered with a serious expression “Step up your game, though. You only have a few days left to beat your February record, mate.” 

  
  
  
  
  


Chris woke up pretty late, and he was already regretful about it. He knew how much he had to do, yet his brain played him like this. The worst part was that he didn’t even feel well-rested, cause he stayed up half of the night. Well, that was actually his fault. 

He washed his face and brushed his teeth quickly, and rushed to the kitchen to have as quick breakfast and leave. He didn’t even bother to do anything with his disastrous hair or try to help his swollen face. He didn’t have a lot of days in which he didn’t have to go anywhere. No college, no job. Just Chris and his assignment. 

He was just taking a bowl out of the cupboard when he heard a familiar voice behind him. 

“Damn, you look pretty sexy today,” Seungmin said, and Chris rolled his eyes. “You know what else is sexy? Counting delta.” 

“I don’t need you anymore,” he mumbled as he used to do to all of his hallucinations, hoping they would give up on whatever was going on in their ghost heads. 

“But you adore me,” Seungmin answered, very sure of his words. 

In fact, he was right, but Chris would never  _ ever  _ admit that. 

“You’re just a nightmare coming back when I suddenly recall my math exams,” he said, and he really hoped Seungmin won’t start the same topic again. Okay, maybe using the ‘math’ word Chris basically asked for this. 

“Oh, come on!” He heard, and he already knew where it was going. “You could do so much with those abilities. You could surpass any scientist, any mathematician! Maybe you could invent some cool shit!”

“But I don’t want to invent any shit,” Chris answered, giving Seungmin’s rambling as little attention as he was able to. 

“Ahh fuck. Then I don’t know. Learn biology and turn people into dinosaurs. Or huge mosquitos.” He could hear that Seungmin was frustrated, but he didn’t care that much. They had this conversation way too many times. 

“You want some cereal?” He asked, not even looking at him. 

“I’m not real,” Seungmin reminded. 

“Right,” Chris said, finishing his meal quickly and grabbing his laptop ready for the day. 

  
  
  
  
  


To be honest, his assignment wasn’t going that well. At first, it was all going smoothly, he knew where he wanted to go with the song, and he knew how it was supposed to sound like. But when he was about to write the lyrics, he realised he knew what he wanted to say, but he didn’t know how to say it. 

This day was supposed to be devoted to writing the lyrics only. He went to the same cafe he’s working at, as it was close to his flat and he hoped that Felix being around would make his mood better. He wasn’t sure why he actually brought Changbin along, though. He didn’t need any help with producing and with writing usually. Changbin was only helping him with rapping itself, so in theory today he was useless. 

Maybe he just wanted moral support. Changbin just stayed quiet the whole day and let him work. It was actually more helpful than it sounded, Chris needed his presence, but he didn’t need his interruptions. 

He was rereading the same two lines he managed to create during the last two hours for the hundredth time when he heard a voice. It wouldn’t be even that weird in his case, if not for the fact, that he didn’t know this one. 

“Can I sit here?” The voice of the stranger was soft and for some reason uncertain.

Chris looked up at him, blinking heavily. In fact, the cafe was busy that day, but he quickly made sure if there were really no free tables left anyway.

“Oh, this place is…” He said looking at the chair Changbin was sitting at realising both that he was gone and that the stranger wouldn’t be able to see him anyway. “...free.” 

The boy mumbled a small ‘thank you’ and sat down.

Okay, maybe he wanted to protect himself from the stranger for no reason at all. How can the guy distract him since apparently he was scared to ask if he could sit at his table? He shifted his attention back to his laptop and his precious two sentences. No reason to get frustrated, maybe he just felt different now because Changbin was gone. 

Chris looked at the empty coffee cup left at the table. The stranger put his own coffee right next to it, and only then Chris was able to see that Changbin’s cup was never even filled with coffee. Actually, Chris knew that Felix was giving him empty cups when he was ordering coffee for his hallucinations, he just usually couldn’t see that. In his eyes, the cup had been filled with Americano before, it just suddenly disappeared along with Changbin himself. This was also one of the reasons why Chris was only visiting the coffee shops equipped with a Felix. He always knew that when Chris was saying “two Americanos” he actually meant “one Americano and a cup” and he charged him for one as well. No coffee wasted, more money in his pocket. 

“Where are you from?” He suddenly heard the sheepish voice again. He was surprised, but most of all, he was annoyed. It wasn’t actually for the fact that the stranger was bothering him for no reason, but for the question itself. God, he really hated that one. “I mean from here, or did you move from another city?” He added.

Oh. Maybe Chris could remove the poor guy from his blacklist for now. 

“Yeah, I’m from Sydney,” he said almost mumbling it in the same way he does to his projections. 

“That’s cool,” he heard him answering, and he really hoped that would be it. “I just moved here, you know.”

He really didn’t ask. For some reason, he didn’t want to be mean to the boy, though. He was quite weird, but at the same time, Chris noticed that he looked kind of lost. He probably moved in not only from another city but another country. Chris could hear that in his accent, but he didn’t want to assume anything since he hated when people were doing it to him. 

“You’re kind of awkward, you know?” He found himself saying and instantly regretted it. He saw the boy blushing hard, and he just wanted to slap himself. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say this,” he said as it could help in any way. 

“It’s okay,” the boy answered. “I know I am.”

Chris didn’t really know what to say, so he just stayed quiet. Just like that everything became even more awkward and remained like that until the stranger finished the coffee and left. Chris really hated himself sometimes. 

  
  
  
  
  


You may think of it as weird, but this week Chris couldn’t wait to go to work again. As much as he wanted to leave the shortest and the most embarrassing conversation in his life behind him, he couldn’t do it without telling everything about it to his best friend. 

Felix was usually working more often than Chris. He couldn’t really get his schedule, sometimes he felt like he was working on whatever day he felt like it. He was always there at weekends, though, which were Chris’s days as well. Chris was quite busy throughout the week, so basically he had no other choice than to wait for the week to end so he could gossip with his best bro. 

He couldn’t do it in the morning though, because surprise, surprise; Felix was late, so Chris had to wait for the day to get less hectic to catch him. Fewer clients usually appeared in the afternoon, so Chris just went through the morning without bringing it up. 

Finally, he got a moment in which they weren’t busy  _ and  _ Minho didn’t try to annoy him.

“Listen, I met the weirdest guy the other day,” Chris said. Well, not the best way to start a story about how he accidentally hurt the innocent stranger’s feelings. 

“What was so weird about him?” Felix asked innocently. Chris could almost hear him getting ready to protect the guy’s image. 

“You know, he was trying to make friends like a middle-schooler,” He answered. Damn, when did Chris become so unintentionally mean? 

“Like a middle-schooler? Wanted to play a game with you or what?” Felix asked, confused. 

“No, I mean…” What, actually? “Well, he seemed to be younger than me, and he was all shy and shit. He sat next to me when I was trying to finish that song, you know. Then he started asking if I’m from here because he just moved from another country, at least I think he did. He was so random, jeez.” 

“What did you tell him?” Felix asked. Chris could see in his eyes that he was already sensing that he fucked up in some way. 

“I said he was awkward,” he answered, turning into a sheepish mess himself. 

Felix’s face could say it all, but just in case, he added a few words to that. 

“Oh my God Chris, you’re the biggest asshole.” 

“Hey!” Chris cried out. He knew he deserved some of it, but maybe not as much. “Maybe it wasn’t the smoothest move I ever made, but you’re being quite harsh.” 

“Dude, use your brain.,” Felix started, and Chris already knew he was wrong about something there. “You said he was young, so he was probably no older than twenty. He moved from  _ another country,  _ so I guess he was kind of scared and  _ alone _ enough to try to talk to a random guy at a coffee shop, and the said guy was mean enough to laugh at his awkwardness. What the fuck, Chris?” 

Oh. He did not think about it like that. All he was focusing on was the fact that the meeting itself was weird and he did, in fact, say something not that nice, he just didn’t realise how bad it actually was. Did he really get used to being surrounded by his hallucinations to the point that he forgot how to deal with existing people? 

“Fuck…” He just said. “It’s not like I can apologise now, though.” 

“You better be having nightmares about it,” Felix said ready to leave him and approach the customer who just entered the place. 

“Jokes on you, I don’t sleep.” 

  
  
  
  
  


He really thought that he could just forget about it and move on. The problem was that after some time had passed, he started seeing the guy sitting in the same corner they met. You see, usually, regular customers were coming there for a reason. He could recall many faces of the students coming there, some workers with their laptops and sometimes people who just liked to sit there with a book. And this one was coming there every weekend, just to sit and drink his coffee. 

Okay, maybe Chris wasn’t fair towards him, he was also always sitting with his earphones in his ears. He could catch a glimpse of him from time to time, focusing on the music and looking out the window like an emo boy he was. Sometimes he could spot him looking like he was singing along quietly, but he couldn’t tell if it was actually happening, or if he was just mouthing the lyrics of the song.

He was kind of endearing, but Chris just couldn’t stand looking at him. He didn’t know why his mind got stuck in that situation so much, but he just couldn’t look at the guy without feeling embarrassed. He wanted him to be gone.

Well, maybe he could just go there and apologise, but… But maybe he couldn’t. 

He didn’t know if the boy knew that he was actually working there. Every time he was there, Chris felt like he was kind of appearing in that place, with a coffee already in his hand. Then he was disappearing as suddenly, and Chris was catching himself trying to get another glimpse of him and meeting eyes of absolute strangers instead. 

He wondered if he was choosing the moments Chris wasn’t around to order his coffee. Was he really so upset about all of this that he decided to avoid Chris till the rest of his life, or was it just a coincidence?

To be honest, he wouldn’t be surprised if the boy had no idea he was there. He always looked like his mind was somewhere else. Chris could stare at him all he wanted, but he wouldn’t even notice his presence. 

It’s not like Chris was staring, though. No. He wasn’t. Not at all. 

It also couldn’t leave Chris’s mind that he was always alone there. It was only making him feel even more guilty about turning down his  _ awkward  _ attempts of getting to know him. He couldn’t even whine about it to Felix, because he would push him to the boy right away. He couldn’t tell any of his hallucinations, because Minho would mock him forever, Seungmin would shrug him off, Changbin most likely would leave him with ‘sucks, dude’ and Hyunjin would try to make him feel better to the point in which he would additionally feel bad for not being the sensible angel Hyunjin. 

Chris sighed. Maybe it was the right time to look for another job.

  
  
  
  
  


Chris was really tired that week and ever since he started his shift, he wished for it to end. He couldn’t really focus on anything besides the fact he had not much time left before he was supposed to hand in his assignment, but he still had only two shitty sentences of the lyrics written. He will be stuck with it again when the work is over, and he probably won’t finish and go to sleep before he has to attend his classes again. The pain never ends. 

“Okay, I’ll be going now,” he heard Felix saying and immediately faced the clock alarmed. 

“It’s still two hours left, you bitch ain’t going anywhere,” Chris said. He really didn’t want to suffer there alone. 

“I told you I’ll be finishing earlier today. Don’t you remember?” Felix asked, and there was more meaning into that than it seemed. 

“Oh,” Chris suddenly remembered. “Cynthia, right?”

Felix just sent him a smile while taking the apron off and gathering his things. 

“Good luck, mate,” Chris added. 

Just like that, he was actually left alone to suffer through the day.

Okay, maybe not in hundred per cent alone. Minho was always with him while he was working. He wouldn’t be able to make a single coffee without him, so he just had to stand his presence whether he liked it or not. Luckily, Minho’s goal wasn’t always to annoy him. Most of the days, he kept quiet, letting him focus on the real world, and helping him when he was needed. He was also a good friend, and contrary to what you may think, talking to him could also be soothing and helpful. Yet, Chris couldn’t just gossip with his hallucination when he had the place fully filled with the customers.

The time was passing slowly, but eventually, Chris got his salvation, his shift was over. He took his laptop to work planning on staying there and finishing the damned song. He was doing that often, staying there after the coffee shop was closed and doing his college work. His boss didn’t mind it at all. Well, maybe he would if he knew, but who cared.

Chris knew he still had to clean the tables and shit before he was free to suffer through the other type of pain. Unintentionally, he looked around to see what type of mess the customers left there that day. The situation seemed to be acceptable until his eyes reached the table, which used to be his favourite, but gave him a different type of emotions now. There it was, probably the biggest mess his shift left him to take care of. His least favourite stranger. 

And yes, Chris knew he was being unfair to him. The boy never did anything wrong to him, the feelings he had about him were only Chris’s fault. Yet, his ego couldn’t calm down, and he couldn’t do anything about it. 

The boy was sleeping peacefully with his head on the table. Chris focused for a second on his blond hair. It looked really soft, but at the same time, it was horribly messy. Before spotting that, Chris actually wondered how he didn’t notice when he was closing the cafe, but now he seemed to understand it more. The boy looked as exhausted, as Chris felt. His face was puffy, and his mouth was opened, and Chris couldn’t even get angry at him for drooling on the table. 

He sighed deeply. He knew that there was no escape for him now, he had to confront the stranger. Leaving him in a closed shop wasn’t an option. Or maybe… No. No, it wasn’t. 

He made a few steps towards the guy but turned on his heel when he was in the middle of the way. For some reason, he felt for him, he just wanted to make him feel better. He wanted to apologise, but without making both of them even more embarrassed. He wanted to make him smile. 

He returned to his place behind the counter and put some money in the cash register before he turned to the sweets the cafe was offering. He was thinking about some cookie at first, but honestly, this place had the weirdest things. He wanted to choose something neutral, something that everyone would like. He eyed all of them and crossed out ones including jellies right away. What if he was vegetarian and would get offended by Chris giving him something with gelatine? No, he couldn’t risk it. He looked at the meringue cookies and as much as they looked cute, not everyone liked it, right? Besides… Oh no, what if he was vegan? God, don’t let him be vegan. 

His palms were sweating when he finally shifted his attention to cakes. Cheesecake. Everyone likes cheesecake. And if that little fuck was vegan, Chris could always stuff himself with it while crying. Perfect. 

He cut a piece of it and put it on a plate ready to face the boy. Okay, mentally he wasn’t ready at all, but it’s not like he had any other choice. He approached the table and sat down carefully, putting the cake to the side for now. He couldn’t simply throw it at the boy and run away. Or maybe…

Chris sighed and reached the boy’s shoulder to shake it delicately. 

“Hey,” he half-whispered. “Wake up.” 

The boy lifted himself slowly, blinking heavily. He looked like he could barely see, and for some time, it was probably right. To be more exact, for the time right before his eyes grew three times bigger when he saw Chris in front of him. He was so confused, he looked around hurriedly just to discover that the place was already empty, and Chris was sure it didn’t make him feel any better. 

“I… What...” The boy started panicked.

“It’s okay,” Chris answered, wanting to calm him down. “You fell asleep, and it’s already past the closing time,” he said and realised that it wouldn’t clear up the situation for the boy in any way. “I work here,” he added. 

“Oh,” was his reaction. “I’m sorry. I’m going already. So sorry...” He was babbling, but Chris didn’t let him stand up when he was trying to. 

He put his hand on his forearm delicately, surprising even himself. 

“Stay,” he said. Fuck. “I mean… I wanted to talk to you for a second, so if you could wait a bit I would… be very glad...” FUCK. 

That was just karma at its best. He couldn’t lie, he deserved to make a fool out of himself now, he totally deserved that. He could feel himself blushing, and he hoped it wasn’t that visible. 

He looked up at the boy and saw him smiling slightly. 

“You’re kind of awkward, you know?” He said. 

Sly bitch. 

“About that,” he started trying to keep calm and composed. “That was really insensitive of me to say that, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” The boy said once again, but Chris didn’t feel it was okay at all. 

“It wasn’t okay,” he voiced out his thoughts. “It was very rude, and I feel like even saying I’m sorry wouldn’t be enough. This is why I brought you something as an apology,” he said, giving him a small smile at the end.

Then he moved the cake he previously put at the other side of the table to the middle of it. The boy eyed it flabbergasted.

“Cheesecake,” he said more to himself, and the tone of voice that didn’t give Chris a good feeling. 

He knew it. The little bitch was vegan. 

“You don’t like it?” Chris asked, frightened.

“Oh no, I do,” the boy answered as if he got out of a trance. “Love it, actually,” he added and gave Chris a shy, but really warm smile.

It was making him melt. His features were very soft and sort of pretty, he had big eyes and adorable cheeks. He was smiling sheepishly but sincerely, Chris thought that he was enjoying seeing it way too much. 

“Hey, do you wanna share it?” He suddenly asked, interrupting Chris’s thoughts. 

He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to share it at all. As adorable as he was, he was still a total stranger, sharing a cake seemed to be kind of too friendly, it was something he would gladly do if they were way closer than this. Before he made a stupid comment again, he thought of why the boy might have asked that. It made him realise that he was just probably trying to avoid the awkwardness of eating alone. Chris didn’t have any problem with that, but he knew some people felt very uncomfortable eating in the company of people who weren’t eating at the same time. 

“Sure,” he answered. Right away, he moved from his place and another cake fork. He didn’t want to make it more awkward for him than it already was. 

He went to sit next to the boy again, cutting the piece of cake in half.

They both took their forks and started eating their halves slowly, Chris maybe a little bit slower than the stranger, surprisingly feeling more awkward than him. Maybe he just liked the cake this much, that he forgot about his own timidity.

“I’m Jisung, by the way,” the boy said. “I didn’t get to say it last time.”

Chris felt ashamed for that again, but he didn’t comment on it, knowing that he wasn’t reminding him on purpose. 

“Oh, and my name is Chris,” he answered kindly. “Nice to meet you, properly this time.” 

He couldn’t help but notice how his face expression changed when Chris told him his name. He looked kind of concerned, his eyebrows were furrowed delicately. His reaction made him confused. Did he really upset him just by saying his name? 

“Is something wrong?” He asked carefully. 

“No, no,” Jisung answered quickly. “It’s just hard to pronounce.”

No, it’s not, he wanted to say. He knew it would be rude, though, so he just stayed quiet. He wasn't giving the fact that he was probably a foreigner many thoughts. He didn’t want to treat him differently than others in any way. At the same time, he couldn’t forget that he mentioned himself that he barely moved in here. He couldn’t force on him the Australian agenda if he clearly didn’t want him to. 

“It’s a very basic name,” he said instead. 

“Chris,” Jisung gave it a try, and Chris simply couldn’t help himself but smile at the struggle he put into that. He wasn’t doing it wrong in any way, it just could be seen that he was putting a lot of effort in that. Chris found it adorable. “Can I call you Chan?” 

“No,” Chris answered instantly, but to Jisung his opinion didn’t seem to create any type of barrier.

“I’ll be totally calling you Chan,” he said, visibly motivated not to accept any forms of protests.

Chris frowned, but he didn’t comment on it. 

“So, you mentioned you just moved in?” he started. To be honest, he already made his assumption, it was pretty obvious to him. He just didn’t like telling people who they were and from where they were coming from. He wanted Jisung to tell him himself. 

“Yes, technically, I moved from Malaysia.” He said, and for a second it made Chris surprised. “But I just lived there for a short time, in fact, I’m from South Korea.” 

Chris nodded. He wondered about the purpose of it. Did he come there to study? To his family? He felt like asking, but he didn’t want to be too nosey. 

He really wanted to ask some more, though. He wanted the conversation to keep going. He knew he had work to do, though. Maybe if he was lucky, some other day he would get an occasion to talk to the boy again. 

“Do you mind if I stay at your table, and do some work?” he asked, surprising himself once more. 

Actually, it was past closing time anyway. Jisung wasn’t supposed to be there, and what Chris’s boss would probably wish for was getting him out of there. 

“Oh sure, go ahead,” he answered.

Contrary to his very first statement that he made when he got woken up, he didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

  
  
  
  
  


Jisung didn’t go home that night for as long as Chris was there. If it was someone else, Chris would probably find it annoying. But for some reason, his presence felt comfortable, and he didn’t really want him going anywhere.

Usually, he was getting mad when people talked to him while he was trying to get his work done, but somehow with Jisung, it felt different. He wasn’t interrupting him that often anyway, he was rarely talking. And usually, he was choosing the moments in which Chris wasn’t this busy anyway. Chris found himself talking to Jisung more often than Jisung was trying to talk to Chris. 

When Chris was taking some breaks, he was learning things about Jisung quickly. He learned that Jisung could be quite loud when he was excited and that even though his sheepiness was showing itself strongly at first, he could break the ice pretty fast. He noticed that he liked goofy jokes, he liked to talk about music, but he didn’t like to talk too much about himself. 

He learned so much just on the first day, and he kind of couldn’t wait to see him the next one. Because he was sure he would, he kept seeing him there every day anyway.

That thing was among the ones that Chris was scared to ask about. For some reason, he was afraid that if he asked why Jisung kept coming there, it would make him stop.

This boy really fascinated him, and he wanted to keep him by his side. 

Jisung kept him company the other way as well, and for that reason, it felt weirdly sad to be finishing his shifts that week. He felt like doing overtime on Monday again, but he knew Felix would whoop his ass for skipping his classes again. He didn’t know about Chris making contact with the boy, and he wanted it to stay that way for some time. For some time, Jisung would stay only his. 

  
  
  
  
  


It was three weeks later when his assignment was supposed to get graded. It actually was graded, for the rest of his group at least. Chris was the only one who had to redo it. 

It was making him so mad, he didn’t even feel like speaking to anyone that day. The worst part was that what didn’t satisfy the teacher was the part he put the most effort into, the damned lyrics. He was staying at the coffee shop every time after his shift and working on it. He was coming there to work on the lyrics even in the week when he just had some free time. Which also led him to the discovery, that weekends weren’t the only days in which Jisung liked to spend his time there. 

Chris didn’t know if it was just a lucky coincidence that he could meet him there almost every time he was visiting, or if the boy really was that jobless. He didn’t mind it though, his presence was soothing, and it was what gave him inspiration actually. For some reason, he could write better when Jisung kept him company, so Chris was motivated to use this to the fullest. He was really happy with the final effect, to be honest. This is why the failure was even more upsetting. 

“You’re going to scare off the customers with that face, dude,” he heard Felix’s voice and turned his eyes to him instantly. 

“Don’t be mean, I was born like that,” he said, and Felix rolled his eyes. 

“You know I meant the expression, you smart ass,” Felix answered. “What happened?” He added right after, in a softer tone. 

Chris sighed. 

“I fucked up the assignment.” 

“What?” Felix seemed to be surprised. “He failed you?” 

“He didn’t fail me, he failed a few people, but I was the only one who was ordered to redo it." The way he said it made it sound more like a question. “He said he couldn’t grade it, but he couldn’t fail me as well because that would be discrimination, like what the fuck was that even supposed to mean?” he asked. In the corner of his eye, he saw Minho opening his mouth to throw some witty remark at him, but he closed it right after seeing the face that Chris gave him. 

“The fuck… What did he say was wrong?” Felix asked again. 

“The lyrics,” Chris answered resigned. 

“You spent so much time on this one, though?” Felix’s eyes were concerned, and it was making Chris even sadder. 

“I know!” Chris sighed again. “He said he can’t grade it cause he can’t understand it, so I have to make another version.” 

“What did you put in there, mate?” Felix asked. “Wait, did you listen to some of Seungmin’s math songs ideas? I told you never to listen to Seungmin’s ideas-” 

“No, the fuck,” Chris answered, annoyed. He might hallucinate a lot, but he wasn’t this insane. “It was a love song, and it wasn’t that complicated, to be honest. It was nice, but it was simple.” 

“Hmm…” Felix pondered about something for a second. “Can you show it to me?”

Chris, in fact, still had a paper with the lyrics in the back pocket of his jeans. At some point, he found it more comfortable than writing on his laptop. He put it out and handed it to Felix without a word. It was folded a few times, and to be honest, it looked as if he took it out of his ass. 

Felix didn’t comment on it, he just unfolded it quickly. He gave it a look, and his eyebrows furrowed instantly. He looked up at Chris, confused and concerned at the same time. 

“What?” Chris asked.

“You wrote this in Korean, Chris,” he said. “He had the right to say he didn’t understand, I don’t understand it as well.”

“What? No, I didn’t. I wrote it in English.”

He didn’t want to say how ridiculous it was. He didn’t even know Korean, how was he supposed to write a song in it? He took the paper out of Felix’s hand and looked at it. 

His heart stopped when he saw that he was right. It was obviously written in Hangul, and he as well couldn’t understand shit. He didn’t mistake the paper for sure, the doodle that Jisung drew in the corner of it was still there. He couldn’t understand any of this situation.

“This is bullshit,” he mumbled to himself and turned on his heel to angrily throw the paper to the trash bin. 

“Maybe it’s time to have some break, you know?” Felix started delicately. “Maybe you should go practice dance again? It’s been a while since you met Hyunjin, I know he was always making you feel better.” 

“I’m not insane, Felix.” He didn’t even know why he said this.

“Hey, I never said you were,” Felix said, lowkey offended.

Chris took a deep breath. 

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m okay, so you can stop worrying about me.” 

“If you say so,” Felix said and finally let him be. 

  
  
  
  
  


“Cats or dogs?” He heard a voice, and it made him startled. 

He looked up from his notes, just to see Jisung half lying on the table and staring at his phone. It was already an evening. Chris noticed it only thanks to the fact that Jisung was already hidden in his grey hoodie, with the hood on his messy hair. 

“Huh?”

“I asked cat or dogs, hyung,” he repeated, still not looking at him. 

Chris didn’t even notice when he started calling him ‘hyung’. It was unusual, to be honest, he still felt pretty weird with it, but he couldn’t just tell him not to. He was getting used to that, though. He could put up with pretty much everything for that boy. 

“Am I supposed to choose one?” Chris answered unbelievingly. “You’re being pretty cruel.” 

“What? No that’s ridiculous. You’re supposed to choose which boxers you’d prefer,” he said, showing him the screen. 

Chris looked at the auction he was showing him. He didn’t think he was the person who was spending his time at sites offering cheap quality clothes, but there he was pondering between yellow boxers decorated with small kittens, and red ones full of black and white dogs.

Chris snorted. 

“I think dogs,” Jisung mumbled.

“You aren’t seriously buying them, are you?” Chris asked. 

To be honest, he wouldn’t be that surprised. Jisung was that type of person who would do things without a good reason, just for the fun of it. It wouldn’t be very unusual for him to buy those ugly ass boxers  _ just  _ for the fun of buying them. 

“Of course not,” Jisung answered, and Chris almost sighed in relief. “Just imagining,” he added. 

“Imagining buying ugly $2 boxers?” Chris asked, a bit confused.

“Yeah,” was all that Jisung said. He chuckled and started scrolling on his phone again. 

Chris lost the interest in his notes utterly. He just kept looking at Jisung who was still lying on the table, and he kept wondering. During that short time they knew each other he felt like he got to know him so well, but at the same time, he knew nothing about him. He didn’t know what made him so lost in the world, and what made him so timid. He knew nothing about what he was doing daily and where he lived. He didn’t even know if he had any family there, but something was telling him that he didn’t. However, he tried to ask though, Jisung wasn’t comfortable to answer. Chris wondered if there was something that hurt him, something he was too scared to talk about. 

At the same time, he knew he could trust him even without talking about such things. Jisung wasn’t a stranger. He became his friend very quickly, and he was sure that he would get to know all the details about him that he was supposed to know with time. The time just wasn’t right in Jisung’s opinion, and Chris respected that. He just regretted that he didn’t know how to help him. 

“Let’s go somewhere,” Chris said suddenly. 

“Huh?” Jisung looked up at him with furrowed eyebrows. Apparently, he was too concerned to even try to form a better question after that.

“I mean, we only sit here,” Chris explained. “I need a breather.”

“Hyung…” Jisung started slowly. “I didn’t want to force you to keep me company. If you didn’t like-”

“Oh, shut up,” Chris interrupted him, and Jisung’s expression turned into a very surprised one. “You know that’s not what I meant. I’m here because I like to spend time with you.”

“Oh,” Jisung mumbled, but Chris ignored him and just continued.

“I’m not craving entertainment, I just…” He blinked a few times, realising his own intentions. “I just want to take you somewhere.”

He didn’t mean a date or anything like that. He just wanted to spend time with him somewhere else than in the place he works at. If he doesn’t stop it now, Jisung’s brain will assign his face to this cursed place only, and he couldn’t let that happen. Besides, he really wanted to make him happy. 

“I don’t know, hyung…” Jisung said quietly, looking down like a shy preschooler. 

“Sungie,” Chris started once again. “I know you’re not a social butterfly or anything like that, and I know new places stress you out. But I promise not to let any strangers bother you. It’ll just be you and me there, okay? You’ll just have to look at me, and I’ll be the only one looking at you.” 

Jisung smiled sheepishly before looking up at him again. He still seemed to be worried, but after some time he nodded softly, and Chris sent him the kindest smile he was able to give. Then he stood up. 

“What?” Jisung asked taken-aback. “Now?!”

“Now,” Chris answered simply and started gathering his things.

“Wait, but… You need to give me time to mentally prepare,” he said, but Chris was already on his way to the door. “Wait, Chan!” He cried after him and followed, not having another choice. 

“Where did ‘hyung’ go?” Chris asked teasingly. 

“You hate it anyway,” Jisung mumbled, offended by the whole situation. 

“No, I don’t,” Chris answered, and it was honest. “It was unusual at first, but now I just associate it with you. And since it’s a part of you, I do like it.” 

Oh. He didn’t realise what he was talking about until he was finished, and it was too late to stop. He hoped that Jisung wouldn’t understand it wrong. It was true, though. He really did like every part of Jisung. 

Jisung blushed, but Chris decided it was better to pretend he didn’t notice. 

“So is there anything you want to do in particular?” Chris asked to shift his attention to something else. 

“It was you who wanted to go out,” Jisung said quietly. 

Being outside was really making him way more tranquil. Chris thought it was very cute, but he still hoped he’d be able to make him more comfortable with time. 

“Yes, but I want you to have fun. Otherwise, you’re going to get some trauma and never agree to go out with me again,” Chris said, and Jisung gave him a quiet chuckle. “So? What would you like?”

“I actually miss cinema,” he said. “I know it’s not any brilliant idea, but I haven’t gone to any since I left Korea, and I like movies. Quite a lot to be honest.” 

Chris had a really hard time not to coo at him. He didn’t know why he was afraid to share this with him, but he thought that it was making him extremely adorable. At the same time, it was another thing that he learned about him, and he couldn’t be happier. 

“Okay,” he said as if it was nothing, even though he was excited. “Cinema it is.”

  
  
  
  
  


“So this one?” Chris asked and watched Jisung nod shyly. 

To be honest, at first, it felt as if he was a dad on a trip with his eight years old son. At the very beginning, he bought Jisung a pack of jellies and a cup of cola in the largest possible size. They were supposed to share it, even though both of them perfectly knew Chris doesn’t drink things like that. Then he let him choose the movie, and it just took  _ ages _ . For some reason, Jisung had to carefully check every option they had, including descriptions, all posters, director and the cast. Chris tried to be patient, but in the last part of it, he felt like throwing Jisung’s phone away. Eventually, the decision was made, and Chris didn’t even think about complaining about the choice. 

“They don’t play Latino movies very often,” Jisung explained. 

Chris was fine with everything, anyway. Firstly, because he wanted  _ Jisung  _ to have fun, and secondly, because if he was to start deciding all over, Chris wouldn’t fucking stand it. 

“Okay, then I’ll go get us the tickets, and you can find some place to wait at,” Chris said and rushed to do what he said, not waiting for an answer, just in case Jisung thought about changing the decision.

Buying the tickets went quite smoothly, he barely had to wait in the queue, since there weren’t many people there at this time of the day. When he took the tickets out of the cashier’s hand, he wanted to rush back to find Jisung instantly. But when he turned around, he made only a few steps before he spotted the boy, staring at him with his doe eyes. He was holding his huge cup of cola with both his hands, and it made him look even smaller. For some reason, he looked sorry, as if waiting for Chris instead of finding the place to sit was such a big deal. He opened his mouth to say something, but Chris cut it right away. 

“Here, I can see an empty couch,” he said and moved to the direction he previously pointed at. 

Jisung trumped behind him, and he spoke up again only when they sat down. 

“How long?” He asked. 

“Twenty minutes,” Chris said. “I guess we can go after fifteen.” 

“Hyung… I think there is something I need to tell you,” Jisung started.

Chris felt his heart beating faster. He was curious about the thing that was bothering him, but most importantly, he wanted to be able to support him. He didn’t think he’d get to know such things so soon actually. 

“I…” Jisung tried again, but apparently, it was harder for him to open up that you may think.

“It’s okay, Sungie,” Chris said calmly, trying to comfort him. “Whatever it is, you can trust me.” 

Jisung blinked a few times looking at him. Something was blocking him, and Chris could see that. He wanted to know what it was, of course, but he didn’t want Jisung to feel uncomfortable in any way. He cared for him way too much.

“Whenever you’re ready, Jisung,” he cut off his sufferings. 

“Okay…” Jisung answered reluctantly. “Okay, hyung.”

  
  
  
  
  


Chris was surprised seeing almost all the seats empty. At the second thought, he was kind of glad about it, though. For some reason, he enjoyed the fact that they were almost alone there. Maybe it would make Jisung feel better as well. 

They sat at the back as they were supposed to, Jisung put his huge cola into the holder which wasn’t even on Chris’s side. Chris felt like laughing at his adorable sugar-greed, he decided not to show any reaction though.

“Excited?” He asked. 

Jisung sat more comfortably as if he wanted to melt into his seat. 

“Sleepy,” he mumbled. 

“Don’t you even dare,” Chris said, and Jisung chuckled quietly.

For some time, it was quiet. Chris was wondering if he should propose him coming there more often. If he liked it, of course. At second thought, he decided against it. Maybe he could just buy him over with more jellies later. 

“Actually, I didn’t think you were a person that likes going out that much,” Jisung said quietly. 

“What do you mean?” Chris asked. “I’m literally never home.” 

“Yeah but…” Jisung started. “You’re always busy with something. Maybe you’re not home, but you go outside only to work some more.”

“Hm…”

He was right. He didn’t like wasting time, and at this point, he set his mind at thinking that almost everything was a waste of time. It was exhausting, he couldn’t even have fun without thinking that he should be doing something productive at that time. There was never a time of rest for him. It was always working, developing, getting better. 

But with Jisung… it didn’t matter that much. He could finally relax, he could stop worrying about the clock and the things he was supposed to do. Time spent with Jisung was never wasted. 

“Maybe I should slow down, in fact,” He finally answered. 

“Really?” Jisung asked, genuinely surprised. 

Chris thought about it some more, and then he nodded. 

“I wanna slow down,” he said. “I wanna be with you more.”

Right after he said the second thing, Jisung cut their eye contact blushing. Fuck. He didn’t mean to say it, it just slipped from his mouth for some reason. He felt that his own blush matched Jisung’s one. Did he make him uncomfortable? Well, probably.

He didn’t even know why he was acting like that. What the fuck was wrong with him? 

Luckily, the movie finally started and cut the awkward silence that was surrounding them. The very beginning of it was simply showing some beautiful landscapes. There was background music that was matching, but maybe a little too sentimental. Then the first scenes started, and Chris focused on reading the subtitles. 

He tried not to think about what happened. Maybe it wasn’t that horrible, but he still shouldn’t have said that. Looking at Jisung’s reaction, he could assume that whatever Chris was feeling, Jisung wasn’t feeling the same. He just embarrassed himself and probably lost a friend. 

Fuck. Maybe if he explained to him that he didn’t mean it like that, he could still fix it?

Then, unconsciously, he looked at Jisung’s face again. He was staring at the screen focused, but kind of distressed. He was furrowing his eyebrows, and it made Chris sure it wasn’t about this whole situation anymore.

“What is it?” He asked. 

“Oh,” Chris made Jisung startled speaking up again. “I’m just stupid,” he said and chuckled. 

“What?” Chris asked, answering his quiet laughter. 

“I totally forgot the subtitles here are not Korean,” he answered sheepishly.

“You speak English, though?” Chris said, confused. 

Of course, Jisung spoke with an accent, but there was nothing wrong about it. Chris found it cute actually, and it had nothing to do with his ability to communicate, which was literally so good. 

Jisung kept staring at his face for a few long seconds before he gave him a proper reaction. 

“Ah… It’s just really fast, you know,” he said. “I’m not that good at reading it.”

Chris wouldn’t predict such a problem to occur when it comes to English, but it’s not like he could actually tell something about this. Please, even with his super-intelligence, he wasn’t able to learn Korean when he got frustrated and gave it a try that one time. Jisung was so cool for learning another language and operating it so well. So if he says that quick reading is hard, then it is fucking hard. 

“We can leave if you want,” he said. “I’m sure we can still find another movie to watch today.”

“No, hyung, it’s fine,” Jisung answered calmly. 

“You don’t have to worry about tickets or anything,” Chris assured him. “It’s okay.”

“No, I actually mean it,” Jisung said right away. “I want to stay here.” 

Chris just kept looking at him. He wasn’t sure what his reaction meant. He doubted that it was about him getting stressed, he was relatively calm, relaxed even. 

“Okay,” Chris finally said. “As long as you enjoy it, we’re staying.” 

Jisung gave him a faint smile, and then Chris looked at the screen again. To be honest, he didn’t care about this movie that much. It’s not like it was bad or anything. Actually, Chris couldn’t even tell if it was. The last thing he was able to focus on was the first landscapes that appeared there, and after that, he had no idea what was going on. He didn’t mind it that much, though. Maybe he just enjoyed his time in the exact same way that Jisung did. 

He decided to focus on the happenings there at least slightly if, for some reason, Jisung wanted to talk about it later. He was following the dialogue, but at this point, it made no sense for him at all. He hoped that after some time he’d be able to understand at least some parts of it. He was very motivated until he felt someone’s fingers brushing his little finger hesitantly. He kept his hand on the armrest where it was, and carefully he looked at Jisung’s face again. Even in this light, he could see that his face was red and that he was very stressed out now. At that moment, Chris’s face probably looked similar. He looked to the front again, trying to stop being all tense. It was nothing. It was okay. 

Jisung’s hand moved to brush the rest of Chris’s fingers, then to rest on his hand, caressing it with his thumb. Chris wasn’t sure what to do. Should he show no reaction, so he wouldn’t scare him off? Should he send him a smile to signal it was okay? Was it okay? Was this what Chris actually wanted? For sure, it felt good.

Chris turned his hand around, and Jisung probably already got scared that he wanted to throw him off. But it lasted just for a second, ‘cause what he did next was grabbing his hand again and intertwining their fingers. 

At first, it was awkward, but with time both of them got more relaxed. He was holding his hand tightly, not letting him go even for a moment. 

Even when the movie ended, he was afraid to let him go. He held him by his side as long as Jisung let him.


	2. Chapter 2

A lot of time had passed since he last saw him, but this fact didn’t make him stressed. Honestly, how could you be nervous before meeting this guy? If Felix was sweet, then Hyunjin was a whole candy factory. 

He opened the door of the dance studio without hesitation and saw Hyunjin already waiting for him while sitting on the floor. 

“Oh? No Felix again?” He asked. 

Chris sighed. Actually, he predicted this would be the first thing he was going to hear from him. Please, Hyunjin simply  _ loved  _ Felix. And Felix had good contact with all of his hallucinations if you could even call it like that, but Hyunjin seemed to be kind of the easiest to love without even seeing or hearing him. He was trying to make them meet from time to time, but it wasn’t that easy. When he wasn’t bringing Felix along, Hyunjin was sad that he couldn’t see him, but when he was bringing him, Hyunjin was getting sad that Felix couldn’t feel his hugs. 

Besides, constant explaining to Felix what Hyunjin just said or what he just did was tiring for both of them, and he knew that. He just had no heart for telling that to Hyunjin. 

“I brought food instead!” Chris exclaimed hoping that his enthusiasm would make Hyunjin enthusiastic as well and he would forget about his small heartbreak. 

“Yay!” Hyunjin clapped his hands. “But damn Chris, we’re supposed to practice, and you’re stuffing me with food. You’ll make me all puffy,” he said after that and pouted. 

Chris smiled at him, unwillingly. Hyunjin loved eating, and opposite to Seungmin he wasn’t reminding him he wasn’t real every five minutes. He wanted to tell him that the food won’t make him gain weight or look bad in any way, but he decided against it. It had no influence on him, but that wasn’t something that Hyunjin would like to hear. 

He sat down next to him and handed him one of the lunch boxes. He might complain all he wanted, but Chris knew he wouldn’t say no. 

“So? How have you been doing?” He asked. 

Chris shrugged, focusing on his noodles more. 

“As always,” he answered.

“Don’t lie!” Hyunjin said, poking his shoulder and almost making him choke. “You look different than the last time I saw you. You’re not all swollen and messy… If I didn’t know you, I’d think you got some good sleep,” he joked.

“Yeah, very funny,” Chris said sarcastically. “But I’ve been actually sleeping better lately.”

“Really?” Hyunjin asked and got closer, looking somehow fascinated. “How did it feel?”

“You know, just sleeping,” he answered uninterestedly. 

“I don’t know,” Hyunjin muttered, and only then Chris realised his mistake. “I don’t really remember sleeping.” 

“It’s not a thing to remember to be honest,” he said delicately. “Just the moment of falling asleep is nice.” He pondered for a few seconds. “Maybe next time we meet you could give it a try?”

Hyunjin gave him a sincere smile in answer. 

“You didn’t try it with others?”

He knew that his hallucinations could actually hang out with each other without him involved. Which they often did, because from what they said it was the only possibility for them to ‘exist’ without Chris or something like that.

Hyunjin shook his head, resigned. 

“They all remember sleeping so when I asked one of them he wouldn’t help and I gave up,” he explained shyly.

Chris furrowed his eyebrows, thinking who could be even able to turn him down. Well, he could only think about one of them. 

“Ahh, that asshole,” Chris started.

“Don’t call him that,” Hyunjin whined instantly. He really was too pure.

“You should have asked someone else,” he continued. “And if you have to ask Minho, remember to do it twice.” 

“Why?” 

“You know, he’s like that…” He didn’t even know its name when Minho wasn’t around. “That weird milk coffee he makes, only bitter at first.” 

Hyunjin chuckled. 

“I wish I was real,” he said, and Chris felt his heart break slightly. “I could do those things alone.”

“I do not wish you were real,” he answered right away, trying to fix his mood. “You like and trust literally everyone, I bet you’d get yourself kidnapped. You’re staying in my pocket, sweet boy.”

Hyunjin giggled, and Chris felt relief. 

“I wouldn’t do that!” He answered, still laughing. 

“You totally would.”

“Nah, who’d want to kidnap me? People aren’t like that,” he continued arguing, but he just proved the opposite. 

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about!” Chris said, and Hyunjin laughed again, even though he probably still didn’t believe Chris was right. 

“Okay, so back to the topic,” he said. “What made you glow like that, hm?” 

Chris just shrugged, but somehow this particular plan of distraction didn’t work. 

“A boy?” He asked again. 

Chris whined. 

“I knew it!” Hyunjin exclaimed, excited. “So? Who is he?”

“We’re just friends,” Chris answered, hoping to cut that conversation. 

“You seem willing to change it, though,” he teased. “Come on, tell me something about him.”

Chris started thinking about it. Was there something that he actually could tell him? Chris himself, in fact, didn’t know who Jisung was. Was he a student? Did he work somewhere? He had no idea about things like that. He just knew his age, and he was pretty sure he knew his soul. 

“He’s very sweet and very shy,” He just said. “He laughs loudly and has the biggest collection of different smiles I’ve ever seen. He likes music, and he hums a lot, and he likes to doodle.”

“Wow,” was Hyunjin’s answer. “Sounds so cool, Chris, really. I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks,” he answered. “But as I said, he’s just a friend.”

Hyunjin ignored him. 

“I wish I could meet a boy,” he said then. 

Oh. It wasn’t something that Chris predicted. 

“I didn’t know… I mean you’ve never mentioned you liked boys too.” 

Hyunjin chuckled. 

“You said yourself that I like everyone.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t what I meant then,” Chris answered and Hyunjin shrugged. 

“It doesn’t really matter,” he said, keeping his eyes on the noodles he kept harassing with his chopsticks. “I’m not meeting anybody anyway.” 

He looked sad, and it was making Chris feel the same. No one deserved to be happy as much as Hyunjin did, yet he wasn’t able to reach that happiness. 

“How about Seungmin?” He asked. “I feel like you like him more than the others.” 

Hyunjin laughed quietly again. 

“Maybe,” he said and made a pause to fill his mouth with the cold food. “But he doesn’t like me at all.”

“What? Why do you think so?” 

Chris didn’t think there was any person that Seungmin disliked. He was kind of… cooperative. Maybe he was easily annoyed, and he argued with Minho quite often, but he could be friends with anyone. Even such things as all those arguments didn’t matter to him. He didn’t see how he could dislike anyone, especially Hyunjin. 

“I don’t know… He’s kind of cold towards me,” he muttered shyly.

“Oh, Hyunjin… It doesn’t mean he dislikes you. As I know him, if he’s cold towards you, it probably means he just likes you a lot.”

Hyunjin laughed. 

“Why did your mind create a bunch of weirdos?” He asked playfully.

“So they suited me,” Chris answered with the biggest smile possible and returned to his noodles which also got cold a long time ago. 

He didn’t think they were going to practice that day anyway. 

  
  
  
  
  


Chris hated that library. Well, maybe not exactly.

The building was all fine, and it didn’t do him shit. It was quite small and didn’t have this many books compared to other libraries in the city, but somehow if he wanted to find something rare, this was the only place he could do so. With time, he learned to go straight there, if he wanted to find something for his college work. But the fact he was finding what he needed didn’t make going there any less frustrating. 

The problem was meeting someone who he sometimes considered his archenemy. Mrs Park. 

Okay, let’s start from the beginning. Chris really hated people assuming things about him. He hated when people were telling him who he was, or worse, who he wasn’t. He was born and raised in Australia. He was Australian, what was so hard to understand in that? 

And of course, it’s not like everybody who he met had a problem with accepting him, it wasn’t like that. He met lots of lovely people in his life, people who listened to him and who didn’t question him in any way. Yet, it couldn’t save him from meeting some jerks from time to time. 

Well, he couldn’t think of Mrs Park as of a jerk, using this particular word was making him feel bad. She was just… old. And Chris was cursed. 

Every time he was there, he had to meet her, and each time she was talking to him in Korean only. No matter how many times he told her he couldn’t understand it, she would never stop. She understood him, he knew she was. He literally heard her talking in perfect English to others, just… not Chris. Apparently, Chris didn’t deserve the luxury of understanding what the librarian was telling him, and he had no idea how to earn it either. He even pronounced his surname in the most Australian way possible when they first met, but apparently, even this couldn’t save him.

At least this time, he had Jisung as moral support with him. Well, he already assured him he was not going to utter a single word, but maybe his presence could make him feel better, or maybe it would make Mrs Park a little bit more considerate since only Chris was the cursed one, not Jisung. Besides, Jisung knew Korean. In a hopeless situation, he could save him. 

Or maybe he couldn’t. But at least he got comfortable enough to spend time with him somewhere else than in the coffee shop, and Chris was glad about it. He could see him getting more relaxed in general, and it was making him proud. More time, and maybe Chris would be lucky enough to see him talking to anybody that isn’t him. Something worth waiting for. 

He entered the place with Jisung trumping quietly behind him and took a deep breath getting ready to face the evil. 

As always she was there, reading a magazine on her desk, not being the first to overwork herself. Chris approached her and greeted her kindly. She only made as much effort as looking up at him for a second. She already knew his face. 

“Mr Bang,” She muttered, looking back at the colourful pages of her magazine. “What do you need today?”

Oh. My. God. 

So he did live long enough to see this moment. She was talking to him in English. She was using her perfect English to communicate with Chris. He considered pinching himself. 

“Anything on the history of music, to be honest,” he answered. 

He was failing this subject. He was failing it miserably.

Of course, in theory, there’s not a single subject that would be a challenge for a person gifted (or cursed) with super-intelligence. He could do that easily. He could remember every single fact he needed for his exam, and more. The problem was that his teacher was quite demanding, the amount of knowledge he wanted his students to have was enormous. For Chris, this subject was a different type of danger. 

To put it straight, he couldn’t risk accidentally making his mind create another hallucination for him. The circus placed in his head was pretty crowdy already, and he always felt bad abandoning his hallucinations. Chris didn’t know what was happening to them when he was doing that, but he did know that he shouldn’t be forced to spend his life with assholes. 

He didn’t know what would be the outcome of him actually studying the history of music, so he avoided learning anything throughout the whole semester. He hoped that maybe he’d find a way to pass it with zero effort. Unluckily, he didn’t. 

“Come,” Mrs Park said, finally standing up and leading him through the library. 

Chris followed, and Jisung did the same, staying a few steps behind him as if he tried to stay unnoticed. Chris was used to that, so there was no need to make any comment about it. His progress was already enough. 

Mrs Park approached one of the bookstands, and without a word, she took two books from there and put it into Chris’s hands. 

“One,” he stuttered. “Just one would be enough.”

But as always Mrs Park ignored him and kept handing him books until he had a whole stack. 

“That would be it, I think,” she finally said, not paying attention to the fact that Chris was standing there struggling to keep them all in his hands. 

“Thank you,” he said, resigned, ready to leave the place with all he was given since this woman wasn’t accepting any sort of arguments from him anyway. 

“By the way, I’m glad to see you’ve finally stopped being ashamed of your roots, Mr Bang,” she added then. 

“Huh?” 

Chris was annoyed and confused. What made her think that he was ashamed of his roots? He never was. The fact that he kept repeating he was Australian didn’t mean he was ashamed of where his family came from. It was never the case, it only meant he was fucking Australian. He never had a problem with talking about his roots, as long as that one fact wasn’t invalidated. 

The only answer that Mrs Park gave him was rolling her eyes and leaving him there right after. What even made her so done with him?

“What did she mean by that?” He asked Jisung since he couldn’t guess it himself. 

Jisung just shrugged without saying a word, and Chris already knew he was never going to get the answer anyway. 

He decided to ignore it then. To be honest, his hands were already dying because of the weight of all of the books, and he still had a long way to his flat waiting for him. He looked at Jisung who seemed to be kind of uncertain of what to do next. 

“Study date?” He asked, even though he knew Jisung probably wasn’t interested in the history of music, and for sure he wasn’t interested in reading all these dusty books. 

Jisung gave him a nod and a shy smile, and somehow he already knew they wouldn’t end up studying anyway.

  
  
  
  
  


For some reason, Chris was nervous about bringing Jisung to his flat for the first time. He knew him for months now, and he could be sure that he wouldn’t judge him by the way he lives, but he couldn’t do anything about the way he felt. It was nothing special and nothing fancy, just a simple student flat, and Chris wasn’t inviting people there very often. Actually, the only person who was ever visiting him was Felix, but it also wasn’t frequent. They preferred hanging out in Felix’s place, since he was still living in his parent’s house which, Chris couldn’t lie, was kind of luxurious. The only times when they were choosing Chris’s place were when his hallucinations were invited. 

Chris took a deep yet silent breath and unlocked the door. He stepped aside to let Jisung in. The small hall was leading directly to the main room, which functioned both as a living room and a bedroom. It was quite messy, but he hoped Jisung wouldn’t mind it that much. From what he had noticed, Jisung wasn’t the pedantic type as well. 

The boy approached the table in the middle of it without hesitation and put the books he was carrying there. Chris didn’t know why he looked so tired since he gave them to him only like three minutes before, but he decided not to tease him because of it. 

“Wow, it looks nice, hyung,” Jisung said, looking around, and even though Chris perfectly knew it wasn’t that nice at all, he felt relieved. 

Jisung continued his silent inspection until he approached an old tv located in the corner. God, this thing was probably so dusty. 

Chris wasn’t the type to kill his time watching tv. He enjoyed movies, yes, but flicking through the channels wasn’t by any means appealing to him. He really didn’t want to waste time trying to find anything interesting there. If he wanted to watch something, he had to know specifically what it was before he even made a move to put his plans into life. Of course, this method was leading him to his laptop and not the tv. He usually didn’t even remember it was there, he just rented the flat with it. 

Jisung took the remote in his hand and examined it before switching the old guy on. Chris was watching how he got excited by such a stupid thing as the tv screen slowly coming into life and gifting them with not so intense colours. 

“Oh, I know this one!” Jisung exclaimed a little bit too loudly. 

“Of course you do, it’s Titanic,” Chris answered. “How could someone not know Titanic.”

Jisung tilted his head, looking at the screen.

“I don’t remember it that well,” he mumbled. “I just know I’ve seen this, but I can’t tell what it is about.” 

“Oh my God,” Chris started. “You said you like movies, but you don’t know what Titanic is about? How is that possible?” 

Jisung gave him an uncomfortable look and Chris instantly regretted teasing him. 

“Hey, don’t sulk,” he said. “Just watch it now.”

“Now? And what with the studying?” For some reason, he seemed to care about his grades more than Chris himself. 

“I can just read some while you’ll be watching,” Chris answered. 

“When’s your exam?”

“Tomorrow,” he said, and Jisung gave him a little stare before he started laughing at him. 

“Hyung, you’re the most irresponsible person ever,” Jisung said, not stopping his laughter. Chris didn’t know why he found it this funny, ‘cause if he was an ordinary person, this plan would totally fail, but Jisung didn’t know, he wasn’t one.

“Oh come on, I can do that,” Chris gave him a fake whine. 

He couldn’t really say that this was his way to avoid creating another hallucination, just doing the bare minimum, giving it the smallest possible effort. He knew that even with the smallest try, he wouldn’t fail that anyway. 

“If you say so,” he said, clicking the remote once again to check the programme. “Ugh, it says there’s only the first part played today.”

Chris shrugged. 

“And? They’ll probably play the other part in a week. They always do it like that.”

“I can’t just watch the first part and ignore the second,” Jisung whined, and Chris rolled his eyes. Really, where was the problem? 

“Just come next week and watch it,” Chris said uninterestedly.

“Oh, can I?” He asked. 

Chris shrugged again as if he wanted to say ‘it’s nothing’. Because it was nothing, even if Jisung was there to wait at his flat the whole week, he probably wouldn’t mind. For him, he could stay there as long as he wanted to.

Jisung finally stopped whining and started staring at the screen sitting at the couch’s armrest when he previously decided to locate his ass. Chris decided not to play the ‘you’re going to break it’ card, and he turned his attention to his books. As much as he didn’t want to put too much effort into it, he couldn’t just ignore it. He still needed to somehow pass this shit. He looked at what he actually gathered there and picked one of them which seemed to be the most general.

He sat cross-legged on the other side of the couch and opened the book, trying to keep all his attention on reading it. He really tried his best, but his mind was filled with Jisung for some reason. Eventually, his inner boomer won over him. 

“Will you finally sit properly, you banana-shaped fuck?” He said, looking up at him, and Jisung turned to him instantly straightening his back. 

“Aw,” he laughed at him then. “Is Channie hyung worried about my back?”

“Chan is worried about his couch, get off that armrest you fool,” Chris answered and Jisung laughed at him again. 

“Okay, okay,” Jisung said and finally stood up to sit where people were supposed to be sitting. “Don’t get mad, hyung.” 

Chris couldn’t help but pay attention to the fact that he owned a pretty large couch, but when Jisung sat down, he chose to give him just a centimetre of personal space. He didn’t mind it though, maybe beside his increased disability to focus at that moment. He decided to cut his brain off thinking of their proximity, he enjoyed it, but there was no reason to overthink. 

It was going quite well until Jisung fell asleep. So Titanic wasn’t that interesting after all. 

Since he was kind of leaning to Chris’s side whole this time, falling asleep eventually made his head land on his shoulder. Chris wasn’t complaining. It only made him feel warm, and it wasn’t uncomfortable in any way. His regular breaths were making him calm, and finally, he could pay proper attention to his book. It was all fine, but then he was done with studying, and he was kind of done with sitting like a stick as well. 

He wanted to get closer to the table to put the book down, but he had to admit it wasn’t that easy if he didn’t want Jisung to fall. He succeeded only partially because when he wanted to move to the previous place, Jisung’s head slid down his shoulder and his whole upper body landed on his lap. Great. 

Chris knew he had to wake him up eventually. He should probably walk him home, wherever it was, or at least call for an Uber for him. This couch functioned as his bed; he had no other place to let him sleep at and sleeping together might be a little too much. 

He will wake him up. In a few minutes. For now, he just hugged him delicately to give him a little bit of warmth, even though as always he was dressed in his hoodie. He just was so cute that Chris felt so hopeless. It was like having a cat. 

  
  
  
  
  


Chris liked having Jisung in his flat way better than meeting him at the coffee shop. It wasn’t like he just stopped meeting him there, he still had to visit there to work or something, and he still enjoyed staying with him after his shift was over. He still liked to hang out with him as well. As long as he wasn’t forced to talk to anybody, Jisung seemed to enjoy it too. He stopped complaining about leaving his places of comfort, whenever he or Chris wanted to do something, he was agreeing without doubts. Whether it was going to the cinema, to the park, to the library, Jisung was always willing to keep him company and Chris could easily see how much confidence he gained. 

Jisung visiting him at his flat was still his favourite thing, though. Because it became so comfortable and domestic, that Chris felt as if he was living with him already. Jisung was always helping him cook when they decided to eat at home, and they were always playing rock paper scissors over doing the dishes. For some reason, Jisung liked to watch him when he was studying, and he liked to bother him when he was taking breaks. He was still doodling in Chris’s notes like a toddler, but Chris could never get mad at him for it. In fact, seeing his doodles was making him cheer up when he was getting sick of his college, and Jisung was careful not to damage the notes too much anyway. 

They were watching movies together, more or less ambitious ones, and usually, they were ending up falling asleep together. Although now Chris was always taking care for the couch to be actually prepared for sleeping because the memory of the back pain he woke up with when he let Jisung sleep on his lap throughout the whole night was haunting him till this day. He was also wrong then. Sleeping in one bed wasn’t awkward for them at all.

Somehow even though Chris seemed to be less busy now, it didn’t make him fall behind at the college. Even though Jisung could be distracting, he was also making Chris finish his assignments quicker. Most of them were about music, and for some reason, Jisung kept him inspired. 

Weeks after weeks they were becoming more and more domestic, and Chris enjoyed it more, than he could have predicted. Even the day before they were having a movie night, and waking up alone felt a little bit weird. Chris realised there was something, or rather someone lacking by his side, so he got up right away to follow the sounds he heard from the kitchen. 

Jisung was there, just as he predicted, preparing breakfast for them. It was the first time when he actually woke up first, and Chris really appreciated that he tried to prepare it alone this time because he really didn’t need to. The moment stopped to be enjoyable as soon as Chris realised Jisung was sniffling. 

“Sungie,” he spoke up and accidentally made Jisung startled. The boy jumped in his place and tried to wipe off his tears quickly.

“Oh,” he said. “I didn’t know you were awake.” 

Chris came closer and leaned on the countertop, looking at him with worried eyes.

“What happened?” He asked delicately. 

“Nothing, hyung,” Jisung answered and gave him a fake chuckle. “It’s just the onion.” 

Chris shifted his eyes from his face to the onion, still in one part, lying peacefully in the corner of the countertop, while Jisung continued chopping parsley. It made him even more worried. Did he do something wrong the day before? He couldn’t recall any situation in which he may have fucked up. But Jisung was a sensitive person. Maybe there was something he couldn’t notice, something that made Jisung upset enough to cry, but not enough to pluck up the courage to confront him. 

“Am I the onion?” He asked.

Jisung got confused for a second before the meaning of the question got to him.   
  


“Oh? No, it’s really fine… I just…” He stopped then to look at Chris’s face.

His eyes were still filled with tears and as lost as when he met him, and it was making Chris’s chest ache. He really wanted the best for this boy. He wanted to hide him from everything that could hurt him. But even after all those months they spent together, he couldn’t really get to him. It was upsetting, but Chris knew he couldn’t force him to reach out to him. For some reason, he still needed time and Chris could tell that. 

Suddenly Jisung cut his stare as if he just remembered about the real world. He sniffed once again and reached for the knife to continue chopping. 

“You’re going to snot into our breakfast,” Chris said and heard Jisung chuckle through the tears. It was good to listen to him laugh, even if he knew his problems didn’t simply disappear. “It’s okay, I’ll finish it,” he added, taking the knife from his hand and giving him a gentle pat on his back to signal that he could just take a seat and watch from now. 

Chris could feel that Jisung didn’t feel like speaking at that moment. It wasn’t only about the reason behind his tears; he just kind of stuck in the safe space inside of his head, he could feel him trying to get invisible there. But if he let him hide, he probably wouldn’t see him out of his shell that day.

Chris quickly went through everything even slightly interesting that happened in his life lately. There wasn’t much of it, to be honest, just some silly college stories or dumb shit that Felix did. Everything happening in his life that Chris actually considered interesting included Jisung. No point in telling him these.

Chris felt hesitant to start telling him a story, but he made sure not to show that. He wasn’t even looking at him as he continued preparing what Jisung had started, but he knew he was listening to him. Chris kept talking, not giving him a single look until he finally reached the point in which he was supposed to tell him the main point of the story. In this exact moment, he paused. 

For a few seconds, only silence accompanied them, not counting the sounds of their breakfast being fried. Chris was starting to get nervous until finally, he heard Jisung’s voice again. 

“What happened then?” His voice was hoarse, but he seemed calm. 

Chris smiled to himself. 

  
  
  
  
  


They didn’t talk about this incident after that. Chris wondered how much time he should give him until he makes him confront his feelings. Was he actually supposed to do that? They were friends, but Chris used to think that he shouldn’t force him out of his comfort zone. Chris waited patiently for Jisung to come to him himself, but so much time had passed, and nothing changed. He still knew as little about his story and his concerns. What if he was in some kind of danger? Chris didn’t think about anything extraordinary, but it was still possible. What if he really needed help and had no one to come to? 

He couldn’t lie, he was beginning to feel worried. 

“I would appreciate it if you listened to me at least once a week, Chris. One time in a week.” He heard Felix’s voice, and it snapped him out of his thoughts. 

“Oh… Sorry, Lix,” he said, and Felix just gave him a kind smile. He could sense that he wasn’t, in fact, mad at him or anything, but he still felt bad for not giving his best friend attention he definitely deserved. “I was just distracted, could you say it again?” 

“You don’t have to tell me you’re distracted, Chris, I can definitely see that,” Felix answered and Chris fought the desire to sigh at himself. “You even ignored Minho a few times; I saw what you did with that coffee, mate.”

“Yes, tell this fucker,” he could hear Minho adding some constructive criticism behind Felix’s back, but he decided to ignore him on purpose this time. 

“I’m seriously sorry, I haven’t been giving you enough attention lately,” he said, but Felix just waved his hand at him. 

“I will forgive you, but you have to tell me who’s the lucky boy,” Felix said wearing that stupid face expression of his again.

“Huh? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Chris answered way too quickly. 

“Oh come on, you’re dating somebody, aren’t you?” Felix said with a softer voice this time. 

Maybe Chris shouldn’t be surprised, but he was. Felix always knew him better than anyone, and better than he was showing. He didn’t tend to express how much he knew about Chris, but he was always the one to say the right thing, to predict all of Chris’s messy actions. God, he even knew his hallucinations, what’s left there to talk about. Yet, he wasn’t talking about Jisung. He didn’t mention him even once so he definitely didn’t predict Felix noticing something was different about him. He didn’t even  _ realise  _ something was different about him. Maybe Hyunjin had already told him that, but it never really sank in. 

“What?! And you didn’t tell me?! Bitch I thought we had something-” Minho exclaimed and got ignored again. 

“It’s not really like that,” Chris answered Felix’s question, resigned.

“Hmm… So you guys aren’t dating, but you, in fact, met somebody, and the person keeps you distracted.”

“Well, yes, but-”

“And this person makes you happier,” Felix continued not caring about Chris trying to fight. “Not only happier but also kind of calmer and less of a mess than you usually are. Seriously, you don’t resemble walking trash can anymore, and that’s quite a change.” 

Chris just squinted his eyes at him. 

“Thanks, dude,” he said sarcastically. 

“You’re welcome,” Felix answered with a smile as if Chris was completely serious. “So what are you going to do about this person?” He asked. 

“What do you mean?” 

“What I’m trying to say is that you should reach out to this person, that’s all,” Felix said in a more serious tone.

“We’re just friends,” Chris whined, and it felt as if he was repeating himself. 

“But he makes you happy in a way a friend would never be able to. Or maybe would, but I know you, Chris. He has more meaning to you.” 

Chris didn’t want to give it a thought. Somehow it was too scary to do. For some reason, he suddenly recalled the girl that Felix liked and realised he never asked about his date. Damn, he really was a shitty friend sometimes.

“Wait? How did it go with Cynthia? I totally forgot about her, sorry Lix.” 

Felix waved his hand dismissively, and Chris realised it wasn’t about his mistake right away. 

“I’m sorry, mate,” he said in a sad tone because it actually was making his heart break. “I’m sure you’ll eventually meet somebody who’s going to make you happy.” 

“Of course I will,” Felix said with his warm smile back at his face. “But back to you. When will I meet him?” He asked, and Chris whined. He really hoped this topic was over. 

“Soon, Lix,” he said resignedly. “I promise.” 

“I’ll remember that,” Felix answered, threatening him with his finger playfully. “Now fix your coffee, cause even I can feel Minho’s stares behind my back.”

  
  
  
  
  


Lately, Chris had been way easier on himself, he had to admit that. Actually, he wasn’t afraid to admit it, it was quite obvious that he did. Yet, he didn’t feel bad about it, and that was something new. As much as he appreciated that he managed to be calmer, he still had to put some effort into studying sometimes. Or at least into working on his music, which he actually considered more important. So this is how he ended up in front of his laptop for the whole week. Of course, not counting the time when he had to go to college or to work, but beside it, he barely moved his ass from the front of it. Of course, Jisung still kept visiting him, and if it wasn’t for the reminders he was getting from him, he would probably be sitting there with greasy hair and an empty stomach.

Chris’s business made Jisung pick up a new hobby called Reading Books, which also was something calming to watch. Sometimes he wondered how it was possible for the boy to get excited at pretty much everything. Every activity was like entering a whole new world for him, reading books included. Chris tried to ignore the adorable hums he was making when he agreed with what the book had to say, and tried to focus on his work.

He read the verses he had written again since he was stuck with another song to complete. This one didn’t give him such a hard time like the one from the assignment he eventually had to redo, but there was still something off, and it was making him frustrated. He couldn’t tell what it was for now, though.

“Ugh, I need a piece of paper for this,” he mumbled to himself. 

He didn’t know why, but he was doing better with writing lyrics when he had it on paper. Maybe he was that old-school type who had to grab a pen and a notebook from time to time to create a masterpiece or just anything in general. He couldn’t tell why he was so stubborn to write on his laptop all this time. 

“Would you pass me my notebook?” He asked, and Jisung’s mind finally came back to reality. 

“Hm?” He looked up from his book. “Where is it?” 

“In my drawer, I think,” he answered and focused on the screen again. 

There definitely was something off. When he was reading it, everything made perfect sense. He would call it witty, and it was exactly what he was trying to accomplish with this one. He should be satisfied with this one, but for some reason, he wasn’t. He just couldn’t tell what this reason was. 

He got so immersed in the lyrics again that he didn’t realise he still didn’t get that notebook. He looked up at Jisung, who was still standing in front of his desk, holding something that he found in the drawer and most likely wasn’t the notebook. 

“What do you have there?” Chris asked carefully, feeling nervousness arising in his stomach. 

He couldn’t tell what he was nervous about exactly. It’s not like he hid a dead body there or something. But maybe… Maybe something that would lead Jisung to discover Chris was hallucinating. He almost panicked remembering the drawings of his hallucinations that he made to show Felix how they looked like. Felix took these, right?

Jisung slowly turned around to show him the red lipstick that he was holding. Chris felt relief and embarrassment at the same time. 

“I've never seen you wearing this,” he said, and Chris could hear a trace of disappointment in his voice. 

“It was for my Halloween costume,” he answered watching Jisung getting all fascinated about the thing. He gulped.

“What were you dressed as?” Jisung asked innocently.

Chris whined. 

“Pennywise…” He said resignedly, and Jisung chuckled, finally approaching him and sitting next to him on the couch. Without his damned notebook. 

“Do you have any photos?” 

Chris whined even louder. He really hoped it wouldn’t have come to this. He couldn’t just say no to Jisung, so he took out his phone and went through his gallery. It wasn’t that hard to find the pictures he took then, but it was hard to find any that he could actually show to Jisung. It was a group party, so it wasn’t that easy to find a photo he took without his hallucinations. Of course, Jisung wouldn’t be able to see them, and that would just leave Chris there standing in weird positions, resting his arms on non-existing shoulders. There were some he had with Felix only, but he decided against these too. He will let Felix have his first impression when he and Jisung finally meet. Eventually, he found a selfie, which made him look only a little stupid. 

He showed it to Jisung, and the boy immediately burst out of laughing. 

“What version of ‘It’ did you watch?” He asked, having way too much fun. “It’s not Pennywise, this is Ronald McDonald.”

“We watched it together so shut up.”

Stupid Minho’s Pennywise idea. Stupid Minho. 

“Okay, don’t be mad hyungie,” Jisung answered trying to calm down. Then he looked at the lipstick again, opening it and examining the colour. “It’s pretty,” he said, and it made Chris gulp again. 

“You can keep it if you want,” Chris said carefully. 

Jisung just kept staring at the thing as if he expected it to say something. For some reason, Chris felt some kind of tension, but he was probably the only one to feel so. Jisung’s eyes seemed to grow bigger every time he found something fascinating, now too, even though he was looking down. Chris felt warm just looking at him, and he knew that even if he wanted this feeling to be gone, there was nothing he could do. 

“Put it on me,” he said, and this time Chris was the one snatched out of his trance.    
  


“Wh-what?” He stuttered quietly. Why did he become so abashed suddenly? 

Jisung handed him the lipstick, and he had no other choice than to take it. 

Chris was somehow hesitant to get closer to him. He felt his hands were shaking slightly. Was he even able to do that? He didn’t have much experience with that, and Jisung’s face being so close wasn’t making it any easier. He felt his hands getting sweaty. 

He took a deep breath and placed his left hand on the back of Jisung’s neck to stabilise his head. Jisung closed his eyes, and Chris started slowly putting the lipstick on his mouth. His lips were thin, but they were really pretty, perfect in Chris’s eyes. He found it very hard to focus on the job he had to do when he had his mouth so close and couldn’t protect himself from looking at it. His heart was beating fast, and Chris wondered if Jisung could hear his heartbeat in this silence. 

Finally, it was done, and Chris was surprised that he did way better than he would ever expect himself to do. Jisung opened his eyes and looked directly into Chris’s. He was still close, and somehow he couldn’t make his body move. He wanted to stay there, he wanted to get even closer.

“Pretty?” Jisung asked quietly. The question itself made Chris hold his breath. He was trying not to focus on how beautiful Jisung looked. He was always trying not to focus on that, but in this situation, it was impossible. The shield he made to protect himself from the feelings he had for the boy from the beginning of their friendship was gone. 

“Yes,” he answered weakly. “Very pretty.” 

He expected Jisung to smile, he knew how much he liked being complimented, but he didn’t. He just continued looking in his eyes and at his face for a few seconds, before he put his hand on his cheek and his lips on Chris’s. 

His heart stopped when he placed the kiss on his lips, and right after it started beating very quickly again. Jisung wanted to pull back, but he stopped him there with another kiss. He felt the boy getting more relaxed after that, as he just got confirmation that it was okay, that Chris wanted it too. 

Chris got even closer and kept kissing him until he felt the boy melt until he left him breathless. For some reason kissing Jisung gave him a feeling of relief, as if he was holding himself for ages. He never truly realised how much he wanted this. 

When he finally pulled back, the lipstick was smeared all over his mouth. Chris probably looked similar, as he could judge from Jisung’s breathless giggle, but he didn’t care that much. He smiled at him genuinely, and no more than two minutes later, he was kissing him again. 

  
  
  
  
  


“So what I really find interesting in this story is; did you guys fuck?” 

Chris rolled his eyes. 

“I’m not talking to you,” he murmured. 

“I kinda want to know too,'' Felix said, guessing what Minho had to say perfectly, then he laughed seeing Chris’s face expression. 

“I’m kidding! You can spare me those looks,” he added all proud of himself. 

“No, we did not, if you have to know,” Chris answered mockingly. “We’re going slow, okay? He’s delicate, I won’t jump on him or something.” 

“Jeez, he really got you, huh?” He heard Minho again. 

“Yes, he did. Anything else?” He snapped back, turning to the villain again. 

Minho put out his hands in a defensive manner, but his face expression stayed the same and Chris felt like slapping it. 

“Okay, calm down, Chris,” Felix laughed at him. “I’m happy for you, really.”

Chris took a deep breath. Of course, he knew that Felix meant no harm teasing him and he wasn’t actually mad about it. He was just nervous. Felix was his best friend, probably the most important person in his life, and Jisung was making him so happy. He really hoped they could get along when they finally meet. There was nothing that would make him think they won’t, Felix was a ray of sunshine after all. He was kind and humble and could make everyone around him feel comfortable. Jisung was a whole sweetheart too. He could be energetic and funny, but also understanding and patient. He was just so shy and timid at first. What if they somehow end up disliking each other? Chris’s heart would literally break. 

He took another breath, trying to push negative thoughts away. There was no reason for him to stress about it now. 

“So how did he react?” He heard Felix’s voice again. 

“Huh?” Got out of Chris against his will. 

He didn’t have to say anything else for Felix to judge the situation. Chris’s face got from a very confused one to neutral again very quickly, but Felix still managed to catch it. Percipient bastard. 

“You didn’t tell him!” He half yelled, and his indignant face almost made Chris blush in embarrassment. The amount of disappointment in the air made it feel almost like talking to his father. “Chris, for fuck’s sake!” 

“I can’t just tell him!” He finally gained the courage to start defending himself. “How do you imagine I’d do that? ‘Hey, you know what, I have five best friends, but only one is real… That would make him love me for sure.” He mumbled the last part so weakly he wondered if Felix could even hear that.

“Chris…” He started, and Chris already knew he was about to get all reasonable, and he hated everything about that. “I know how stressed about it you are. I’m not going to lie to you and say it’s nothing big because it is a big deal. But he likes you, right? He already knows you, and he trusts you. He’s not going to run away from you, not without giving you a chance to explain.”

Chris sighed deeply. He knew he was right, just like he predicted. He couldn’t be too annoyed with it too. After all, all Felix wanted was Chris’s own good. 

“I don’t know… I’ve never really told anyone,” he answered.

“You told me.” 

“Yeah, but you already had known me for two years at that time… And you saw me throwing insults  _ and _ sandwiches at literal nothing.” He chuckled. “It amazes me that you actually believed me I wasn’t crazy or something.” 

“You threw sandwiches? What a weirdo,” Minho blessed him with a comment again. 

Chris rolled his eyes. 

“My own hallucinations are calling me insane,” he added. 

Felix laughed quietly and gave him a kind smile right after that. 

“Aren’t we all a little bit insane?” He joked and took a deep breath before continuing. “Chris, listen to me. You’re the most reasonable person I know. You’re rational, responsible and you’re literally so freaking smart it’s crazy,” Chris chuckled hearing this part. “Well, sometimes you act like the biggest dumbass, but I’m pretty sure you’re aware of that… My point is that there is no reason not to believe you. Dude, you’d tell me the zombie apocalypse just started, and you’d see me standing ready with my baseball bat in the next second. I would never question you. If Chris says something, that’s the only acceptable truth.” He smiled again. “If this Jisung guy can’t see that he’s the insane one.” 

  
  
  
  
  


“So?” Jisung almost sang.

“So what?” Chris asked without any enthusiasm, but it didn’t discourage Jisung at all. He stuck his phone under Chris’s nose again, so close that he thought just a centimetre would be enough to crash it. 

“You have to choose one, hyung!” He exclaimed. “What do you think was the point of me showing you all that stuff all day?” 

Chris’s memory went through the two hours of Jisung, showing him eight dollars hoodies in all the existing colours with all kinds of ugly animals printed on them. 

_ Point...? Jisunging?  _

“Why do I have to choose?” He asked, looking at Jisung staring at his phone and going through the designs again.

“You’re my boyfriend, you have to choose,” he mumbled probably without giving it much thought.

Chris blushed. It sounded so unusual yet so good. 

Chris wasn’t a person who did relationships in general. It’s not like he didn’t want to. Deep inside, he was a romantic type. He wanted to fall in love, he wanted to find a boy he could love and cherish forever. He wanted somebody that would know everything about him, and who wouldn’t be a secret for him as well. He needed somebody to stay with him. He just never thought he could afford such a luxury. 

Who would stay with a person who kept hallucinating? Who would fall in love with someone who lived in their own reality in the first place? It never felt possible for him. Even with Jisung sitting by his side, he still had doubts. Yes, he was there, but will he still be when he learns who Chris really is? Will he understand? Trust him? He wasn’t so sure. 

It’s not that he thought Jisung wasn’t understanding or anything. It was just so much to take. If he wasn’t able to do it, Chris had no rights to blame him. If he was born ‘normal’, if he was like everybody else, he would probably have a problem with accepting something like this. There were times when even Chris couldn’t accept living in his own skin. 

As much as he had doubts about this one aspect, he was pretty much sure Jisung was a perfect person for him. Maybe it was just the first love magic or something because Chris had no romantic experience beside fooling around with random guys when he was a teenager, but Jisung really felt right. Yes, he wasn’t exactly what Chris would describe as his hopes and dreams coming into life. He wasn’t an open book for him. Yet, even though Chris has been waiting since forever, he was still sure that one day he will learn everything about this boy. Little by little. 

If Jisung gives him a chance. 

Chris sighed deeply at the struggles going on in his head but made it look like as if it was at Jisung’s bullshit. 

“Are you even going to buy one this time?” He asked, even though he knew the answer perfectly. 

Jisung just snorted loudly, not even looking at him. 

“Come on, I’ll buy it for you,” Chris said, reaching to his phone right away, but Jisung was faster. He took his phone out of his reach as if he was planning to set it on fire, not buy him a gift with it. 

“Why? Why would you ruin the fun?” Jisung asked indignantly. 

Oh my God, what was this boy’s definition of fun? 

Chris just assumed that him not buying all this ugly shit he was picking out once in a while was just a money problem. After all, Jisung was never the one to pay when they were going out. He never blamed him for it. He understood that the boy could have some problems and never asked about it. Chris was the one who was always making him go out anyway. 

“How is choosing something you’re not going to buy fun?” He asked what felt for like the thousandth time. 

Jisung just shrugged as always.

“You know I can buy it for you, it’s not a problem,” he said, getting closer to where he was sitting on the couch, hugging him from the side lightly. “You’re my boyfriend after all,” he added and kissed the blush on his cheek, similar to the one he got himself before. 

“I don’t want it,” he mumbled, drowning in the sensation of Chris’s lips slowly and delicately moving from his cheeks to the corner of his lips and to his neck, leaving soft kisses all the way there. 

“Why?” Chris mumbled back focusing more on the warmth of his skin, on his adorable nervousness he could feel in the way he got still. 

“Because,” he answered and made a pause so long Chris was sure that would be it.

“Because what?” He whispered when his mouth moved closer to Jisung’s ear.

“It feels…” He paused when he felt Chris’s lips on his neck again, and the soft kisses changing into more needy ones. “...as if I was-” The way he stopped talking now was way more abrupt and frightened. 

Chris stopped kissing him, moving away calmly to show him there was nothing to be afraid of. In fact, he was a bit nervous too. Did he do something wrong? Did he go too far? 

He looked at Jisung’s face. He looked as if he was just a move away from some kind of tragedy.

Chris smiled at him warmly. It was okay for Jisung to still get frightened from time to time. He didn’t like that it was happening, but he didn't blame him for it as well. They had time to work on it. They had all the time in the world. 

Chris moved his right hand to his cheek to caress it slowly and make him calm again. He left a firm and long peck on his opposite cheek and heard him take a deep breath.

“It’s okay,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to tell me anything.” 

  
  
  
  
  


The day had finally come. He couldn’t even count how many times he was thinking about it. How many times he was getting nervous and couldn’t sleep because of it. The reason for all that stress was unclear even to him. After all, if Felix and Jisung won’t get along, what bad could happen? It’s not like any of them would tell him not to meet each other. It’s not like Felix would stop being his best friend or Jisung would break up with him. They were all adults. They could figure it out. Besides, both Felix and Jisung were so sweet and cared about him so much that they would probably fake liking each other, just to make Chris happy. 

Maybe it was stressing him this much because their meeting was a crash of two worlds in his eyes. They were similar in a way, yes, they definitely had the potential to become friends. But Felix was a part of his crazy world. He was his daily life. He talked to him knowing multiple pairs of ears were listening. Jisung was the life he would have if he was born different. The life most people had. Life without being constantly worried about being judged because of the way his brain worked. Life without voices constantly surrounding him. Without wondering if they’re real. 

Felix was his reality, and Jisung was his delusion.

Even though he knew that Felix wouldn’t do anything to make Jisung suspicious about what was happening in his head, he was still nervous that something would go wrong. He was mentally preparing himself to tell Jisung the truth for so long now. He was practising it in his head so many times that he already managed to come up with thousands of possible scenarios. He included every option, every reaction, every possible way of explaining it to him. A few times it made him so stressed he started crying. He threw up once. 

Since he had made the decision of telling him the truth, he lost a few pounds. All that healthy looks that his friends told him he got since he started dating Jisung probably disappeared now. He should get it over with. So today was also that day. 

He came to the conclusion that Felix was right. Jisung wouldn’t run away without giving him the chance to explain. But what’s more important is that he also came to the conclusion that Felix was able to convince everyone to pretty much everything. That’s why he should keep him around. Maybe not throughout the whole conversation, but for sure, he needed him. He needed him to support what he was saying or at least to wipe his tears away in case everything goes to hell. So this was the reason why he decided he should try to solve both his problems on the same day. 

He couldn’t stand Felix talking about it before the whole event, though. He wouldn’t be able to stand more planning, questions about it, advises, he couldn’t bring himself to even think about it anymore. That’s why he decided not to tell him what was about to happen. 

He wasn’t able to stand Jisung panicking about meeting a new person, so he decided not to tell him too. It might sound cruel, but he was sure it wasn’t going to be this bad. Jisung was doing way better with people than the day he first met him. He was sure he was ready to meet another friend. He was sure he needed it too. After all, everyone needed Felix in their life. 

He didn’t need much planning on this part. He told both of them to meet him at his place, and there was nothing suspicious about it. He told Felix to be a bit earlier than Jisung. He wasn’t sure if this was the right order, but he decided to go with it anyway. 

When he finally heard knocking on his door, his heart stopped. He knew it was Felix. He had told him million times he doesn’t have to knock, he can just go inside as long as the door is opened, but that mannerly bitch would never listen. He waited for him standing in the middle of the room like an idiot, distressed, but since Felix wouldn’t enter even after knocking, he rolled his eyes. 

“Just come in!” He shouted to the door, as he always had to do. 

Only then Felix entered. 

“Yo!” He yelled to him as if he wasn’t standing in front of the closed door a second ago, waiting for ages like a mommy’s boy he is. “I wanted to bring some beer, but I remembered you said you have an exam tomorrow, so no beer for you, my son,” he said, approaching him and then lifting the bag he was carrying to show him the treasure he had there. “Fanta!” he said in the voice of a cartoon villain and grinned. 

Chris was not in a mood for any of that. 

Felix noticed it right away and put the bag on the table, his expression changed. He furrowed his eyebrows delicately, looking at Chris with care. 

“Why are you standing here like a statue?” He asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Chris answered, a little bit too hastily. “Nothing’s wrong.”  _ Yet. _ He made a circle around Felix, wondering how he should prepare him for what was about to happen, finishing that short stroll sitting on the armrest of the couch, not even caring for the possibility of breaking it anymore. 

“Listen, something important is going to happen today,” he started but got interrupted by the sound of the door being opened. At least this one listened to Chris’s instructions. Not caring to finish Chris rushed to the door leaving Felix there confused. 

He approached his boyfriend when he barely managed to cross the doorstep, taking his hand and leading him to the main room, too stressed to even look at his face.

“Come,” he just mumbled. “I want you to meet somebody.”

He finally let go of his hand when they entered the room where Felix was waiting, looking even more confused than he looked before. 

“Felix, this is Jisung,” he started, but the way Felix’s face expression changed at that moment made him stop the introduction right away. He couldn’t take his eyes off his face. 

“Oh…” Felix started. “Oh, Chris…” 

Chris couldn’t comprehend what was happening. Until finally Felix explained it to him, looking more sorry than he ever was. 

“There’s no one there.”

Terrified, Chris slowly turned his head to Jisung’s direction. He was standing there sniffling, as big tears were running down his face. He was looking at him, and at him only. Looking even more sorry than Felix did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um... yeah
> 
> if you have any questions you can ask in the comments
> 
> the last chapter will be quite short!
> 
> see you~


	3. Chapter 3

Last three months passed like a blur. He had no idea why everything felt so numb. He didn’t care about his mind, he wondered about his body. He knew he should feel tired. Lately, he barely slept. He kept working overtime, studying, doing his assignments. His days were a rollercoaster of effort, even more than usual, yet when he was lying down the sleep didn’t want to come. He knew so well he should feel the exhaustion in his body. But all he could feel was numbness. 

At this point, even Felix didn’t try to lecture him. Was he too gruff lately? No, he didn’t think so. He was just the same as he always was. Nothing has changed. After all, nothing has ever happened, did it? Nothing of that was ever real. 

“This table was already clean twenty minutes ago, you fool,” he heard Minho saying. At least this one didn’t walk on eggshells around him, as people lately tended to do. “Go find yourself a useful job.” 

Chris silently stopped wiping the table, not giving him even a look. 

“Not talking to me today, are we?” Minho commented. 

He was talking to him in exactly the same way as he always did. No need for being dramatic today. Chris wasn’t in the mood. He turned away to come back to the counter, where Felix was busy calculating today’s revenue. 

“I’m done,” Chris said, taking his apron off. “See you tomorrow.”

“Wait!” Felix exclaimed, taking his eyes off the cash register. “I thought maybe you could come over today?” He asked timidly as if he was scared Chris would yell at him for asking the question.

“I’m busy today,” Chris tried to cut the topic right away and head to the door. 

“But…” Felix started. “It’s been a while since we hanged out. You’d use a break, mate, I can see that.” 

“I have some work today,” Chris answered, finally giving him a glance. “I’m sorry.” 

Felix was looking at him with furrowed eyebrows. Chris knew he wanted to say something, but he was considering if there was even a point in that. Finally, he just nodded resigned and let Chris be. 

  
  
  
  


It felt as if he was sitting with that one damned piece of paper for hours now. He already discovered that things were going smoother when he was writing on paper, so shouldn’t he be over with it already? Yet, it just stayed blank, not counting the few lines that he tried to write in desperation and crossed them out right away. He felt useless. He kept staring at the paper, but his mind was somewhere else. It felt as if his mind turned into a trash bin. Why couldn’t he focus? What was wrong with him? Why the hell did he need super-intelligence if he couldn’t even write a few lines of a stupid song?

It was pointless. Chris wanted to cry. He always felt as if his mind was the only obstacle standing on his way to happiness. Now it was just stronger than ever. He felt his eyes burning. 

“I hate you,” he whispered, feeling panic rising in him. “I hate you!” He yelled right after, lowering his head, grabbing it strongly as if he wanted to get rid of it. 

After a few heavy breaths, he managed to look up again. His first panic turned into a different one, a little bit less painful, but as bitter, when he saw a pair of eyes looking at him. Hyunjin looked scared, and for a second Chris thought he was scared of him, and of what he might do. Yet, a trace of hurt in his big doe eyes told him that it wasn’t it. 

“Me?” he asked quietly, and Chris knew that if his body wasn’t so numb, he’d probably feel pain in his chest. 

“No,” he said, feeling guilty. “No, Hyunjin, not you.” 

The last thing he wanted was hurting his sweet Hyunjin. 

“Who?” Hyunjin asked faintly, still anxious and still confused.

“Just…” Chris started. He didn’t know where to go with this. He should have never acted like this, it was unfair. It was unfair to all of his friends, he knew that. As much as he wished to live differently, as much as he could sometimes hate himself, he never hated them. “Just my head,” he mumbled. 

“Your head,” Hyunjin repeated after him. “That’s me.”

“No… Hyunijn, no,” Chris said again, feeling like giving everything up. “I’m sorry, of course, it’s not you.”

He couldn’t blame Hyunjin for feeling anxious. He knew him, he was always like that. Sweet, innocent, easy to hurt. He never blamed him for it. 

He was just so tired now. Everything went to hell lately, and there was nothing that could fix it. He just wished he could go to sleep, he could close his eyes and forget about everything, just for a while. He kept lying to himself and to everyone around him that he was fine, but no one truly believed it. 

Hyunjin just kept looking at him for a while, not sure what to do. He was still concerned, Chris could see that. He knew where it was coming from. He cared about him, there was no point in denying that. Chris was thankful, but right now, he wasn’t able to say it. He wasn’t able to do anything now, besides sitting there and feeling lost. He wanted to cry, he wanted to finally let it all out, but he wasn’t able to do that one as well. 

Finally, Hyunjin got closer to him. Chris wasn’t sure what he wanted to do when he first sat next to him, but it wasn’t making him nervous. Hyunjin put his arms around him, hugging him tightly. There were no words added, no sound he made, anything. Nothing needed to be sad. Hyunjin was simply there for him, and eventually, he relaxed in his embrace. It couldn’t fix anything, but at that moment it was enough.

  
  
  
  
  


That day Chris was alone, almost literally. Felix had a day off, and the coffee shop was surprisingly empty. There were only a few customers throughout the whole day, and at this point, they were all gone. There was still an hour left before the closing time, and Chris couldn’t just finish earlier and go home. There were some rules in his workplace that he still obeyed.

He was leaning against the worktop. A few steps from him, separated with a coffee express was Minho. In exactly the same position, looking as bored as he did. They were waiting in silence, and nothing happened for a very long time now. Chris never knew what was worse, busy days, or days when nothing was happening for hours. Especially that now there was no one he could focus his eyes and his thoughts on. 

He shook his head to get rid of this thought.

“You good there?” Minho asked, noticing his sudden movement with a corner of his eye. 

Chris furrowed his eyebrows, still looking straight ahead. He couldn’t remember any other time when Minho asked him if he was okay. Chris appreciated him just as the rest of his friends, but he knew he wasn’t a type like that. He was just letting you go on with your life, that’s who he was. This question, even if asked in this way, made Chris realise how bad his situation actually was. 

Suddenly he felt sick. 

“What are you?” he asked, but he wasn’t sure why.

“Um… Coffee genius? The handsome bastard?” Minho said, confused. 

“No, I mean…” Chris started trying to sort his own thoughts out. What was wrong with his mind lately? “What are you? All of you.”

“Oh,” Minho said. It was the first time when Chris saw him uncertain of what to say. “Well, I don’t know. We’re hallucinations, projections. We’re a way for your brain to keep up with your abilities. What else could we be?”

It couldn’t be just so easy. Chris refused to believe in it, he didn’t want to believe in it.

“But where did you come from? Did I really just invent you? It can’t be true…”

Minho shrugged. He wasn’t in the mood for jokes, it was visible. It was the first time Chris saw him like that. It should feel like talking to an entirely different person, but it didn’t. It was Minho, true Minho. 

“I don’t know,” he said once again. It wasn’t just for Chris to let him be, he could see that in fact, he had no idea what he was. It was making Chris even more upset. 

“Do you think you could be a person that used to live here, like everybody else? A person that maybe died a long time ago? Do you remember your previous life? Or do you only remember things related to your abilities? Do you remember your parents? Do you remember anything?” 

It was a lot of questions at once, and for a moment, Chris was scared it would piss Minho off. Minho took no offence, though. He didn’t even have to think much, it looked like he was asking those questions to himself too. Chris felt bad for never taking an interest in that, for never asking those questions. They all must have been struggling with who they were, what they were… And Chris never took an interest. 

“To be honest…” Minho started in a serious tone. “It depends on a person. Some of us only remember things related to their abilities, I know it’s like that in Hyunjin’s case. I don’t know if any of us can remember their whole previous life if it existed in the first place.” 

Chris nodded understandingly, not daring to ask anything more. After a moment of silence, Minho decided to speak again. 

“I remember I had cats,” he said. “A few of them, but I can’t tell how many exactly. I remember why I started making coffee. But I don’t remember my parents.” 

“And why is that?” Chris asked quietly. “Why did you start making coffee?”

“Because of a girl,” Minho answered with a faint smile. Chris never in his life was so surprised. He knew Minho was hiding so much behind all his jokes and teasing, but he would never think he was a romantic type. “I don’t remember her true name, but I remember I called her Rosie. She really liked winter, you know? But she didn’t like getting cold,” Minho chuckled, remembering his long-lost love. “She liked wearing warm clothes, and scarves so thick it almost looked funny.” The soft smile on Minho’s face was fading slowly. “She really liked hot coffee. But she didn’t like me.” 

Chris felt it must have been so much more into that. Did she like someone else? Did she lie to Minho until she got what she wanted, whatever it was? He didn’t dare to ask. 

“You never told me…” he said quietly. 

“You never knew this pain before,” Minho answered right away, giving him a sad smile. 

Chris wished he could stay in his ignorance.

  
  
  
  
  


“Gooood morning,” he said as soon as he entered the kitchen and noticed someone’s presence there. “I assume you’re here to have some cereal.” 

Another month had passed. Chris was getting better with every passing day, that’s what he kept saying. Today he woke up in a good mood, and he was determined not to let anybody ruin it. But since this guy decided to visit him after all that time, he knew this task won’t be so easy. 

Seungmin rolled his eyes. 

“I won’t even comment on that,” he said, and silently waited for Chris to finish making his breakfast. 

Chris sat down on the opposite side of the table with his usual bowl of cereal. Lately, his meals had become very simple, as they were in the past. He saw no need to focus on food too much. He was eating when he needed to, but he saw no point in trying to make anything exquisite. He knew he should try to eat a bit more, though. His ribs were becoming visible again. He didn’t care about it that much, he just didn’t want his friends to worry. He didn’t want them to make comments. 

“Hyunjin sent me,” Seugmin interrupted his thoughts. 

Straight to the point as always. Typically to a mathematician, he was never a type to chit-chat, to beat around a bush. Chris already felt an annoyance forming in him. He didn’t know why all of them were so insisting on sending him help. He was fine. He was long past the need of being helped. 

“You two have been hanging out a lot lately, haven’t you?” He asked with his mouth full. 

“That’s irrelevant,” Seungmin said, but Chris could see he struggled to hide his abashment. He had a feeling that at least Hyunjin had some luck recently. “He asked me to talk to you, so I’m here.” 

“He sent  _ you _ ,” Chris gave it a thought. “The most awkward with talks from all of you?”

He felt as if Hyunjin was his mother, who sent his father to temper him. He was only imagining this feeling basing on tv-shows, since his father never was an awkward type, as Seungmin was. His father, unluckily, wasn’t the one who struggled with words, he was the one to yell. Nevertheless, his attempts were as pointless. 

Seungmin shrugged. 

“I’m not gonna pretend I know what to tell you,” he answered. “I just want you to know that we worry about you.”

Chris felt like rolling his eyes. He just wished his friends stopped sticking their noses into his business. They could finally believe him when he was saying he was doing okay. Was that so hard to understand? He needed no nanny to look after him, and for sure he didn’t need a few of them. At least Minho was clever enough to understand that.

“No need for that,” he said simply. 

He wished there were more effective ways of blocking his hallucinations. He could stop them from coming, when he wanted to abandon them, but there was a real struggle in that. If they didn’t want to come, all he had to do was to refrain from summoning them. If he didn’t like them, it was quite easy because his brain usually didn’t try to play tricks on him. After some time they were completely gone. But if they did want to come, things didn’t go so smooth. He had to stay focused to block them from getting through, and he had to be doing that for a long time before they gave up. 

If the projection was already there, he rarely was able to get rid of it. 

And no, he didn’t wish to abandon Seungmin or any of them. Even if he knew the meeting wasn’t going to be easy, he never tried to block them. He didn’t want to risk losing them, so he was just letting them be. As upset as he was with them sometimes. 

“Listen, pretending you’re okay is not going to get you anywhere,” he said. Chris’s jaw clenched. “We know what you’re doing, and it’s nothing good, Chris. We don’t want you getting even more hurt.”

“I told you I’m fine,” he said slowly. His tone sounded aggressive, but there was nothing he could do about it. 

“I can’t see you’re fine,” Seungmin said. 

“And what the fuck do you know?” Chris snapped, standing up. 

You’re just a projection, he wanted to say. But there were some boundaries he wouldn’t cross even in his rage. 

Seungmin was looking at him, taken aback by his reaction, probably not knowing what to say. Chris couldn’t stand it. How was it so easy to make him show his worst? 

He stormed out of the kitchen, afraid to hurt Seungmin's feelings even more. 

  
  
  
  
  


“Any luck yesterday?” Chris asked, hearing Felix humming as he was cleaning the worktop.

“Nah, not really,” Felix answered calmly. “I think we were too different after all.”

Chris smiled, amused. He knew that girl Felix took out last night, or at least he saw her a few times. He attended Chris’s college, and to be honest, he would never think she might have been Lix’s type. He was the type who liked opening the doors for girls and walking them home. He liked intellectual conversations, sharing thoughts, and nothing more than holding hands for a few first dates. 

That girl, Martha, had different ideas for a relationship. Yet, Felix wasn’t the one to judge somebody, especially basing on the people’s opinions about them. He liked giving people chances, even if it meant quite a lot of failed dates. 

“You seem to be pretty happy today, though,” Chris said and started to polish the cups. It was a tedious job, useless if you’d ask him, but who was he to question its importance. 

“Should that ruin my mood?” Felix asked, finally facing him, as his work with the worktop was finished. “Maybe next time we should try a double date thing, hm?”

Chris felt uneasy. An idea of going on a date had never crossed his mind, in whatever configuration it could be. 

“What are you saying?” he said, trying to shrug it off. “I’m not interested in any of your girls.” 

Felix chuckled. 

“Of course not. But imagine if one of my girls had a handsome brother,” he joked. “Family reunions could be quite fun.”

Chris wished he could share Felix’s attitude, but it wasn’t easy. There was something blocking him, like a barrier that wasn’t letting him even joke about this topic. It was suffocating. 

He looked at the cup he was polishing, noticing his face reflecting in it. It made him want to hide, to sink into the ground and never come back. Maybe he’d be able to breathe at least there. 

He sighed, putting it down and taking another one to work on, looking away from the reflection he wasn’t able to face.

“You’ll have to make it without my assistance,” he mumbled. 

Felix gave him a caring look. Chris didn’t feel strong enough to face that one too. 

“It’s okay, buddy. I won’t force you to do anything you’re not ready to do. I just hoped you could take a breather from your worries,” he said thoughtfully. “You know, ever since it turned out that Jisung-”

He got interrupted by a loud crash when the cup that Chris was holding a second ago hit the floor. Chris stared at the broken glass lying all over the floor. How did it slip out of his hands? He couldn’t recall the moment it happened. 

After a moment of silence, Felix sighed quietly.

“It’s alright,” he said softly. “It’s alright, don’t worry about it.” 

He rushed to the backroom to bring a broom and a dustpan. Chris kept staring at the glass, not saying a word. 

  
  
  
  
  


It was already dark outside when the frustration won over him, and he left his flat. He was wandering around, not sure where he wanted to go. Maybe a late evening wasn’t the best time for exploring the city on his own, but he had no time to worry about it.

After no more than twenty minutes, he ran out of energy. He stopped on an empty street and sat on the stairs of some local shop, which was already closed by that time.

His hands were shaking when he reached to his pocket to take out a pack of cigarettes. He had already opened it before, and as much as he believed it could help him with his stress, he had no courage to light one up. He had never done it before, never wanted to and never thought he needed to. But if this couldn’t help him calm down, what could? 

He felt so stupid when he was buying the pack  _ and  _ a lighter. Like a rebellious teenager who just wants to smoke because all of his friends do. He even got asked for an ID, and he felt like such a loser. Although he was just a loser, wasn’t he? 

He finally took one of the cigarettes out and put it in his mouth. He searched for a lighter in his pocket and lighted it up. It was scary, he was afraid of himself when he had the lighter in his hand. After all, who would trust a lunatic like him? 

When the flame touched the cigarette, and he took the first drag, he hoped for a feeling of relief, but he choked instead. That’s what you usually see in movies when someone smokes for the first time, isn’t it? He guessed those scenes aren’t an exaggeration. He went for another drag. 

It didn’t feel any better. It wasn’t helping in any way, it was nothing. Just a bitter taste in his mouth, smoke in his lungs, just ash. It was making him feel even more nauseous than he was before. 

“Ah, fuck this!” he yelled to himself, throwing the whole pack on the ground. 

He covered his face with his hands, feeling defeated. They smelled like smoke. 

  
  
  
  
  


Chris stared at the same few lines of text for what felt like half an hour now. It still didn’t get to him how all of that could happen. 

He heard knocking on the door. 

“Come in,” he exclaimed apathetically, not taking his eyes from the piece of paper. 

“What do you have there?” Felix asked when he approached where Chris was sitting and put the beer he brought on the table. 

“Some of my notes,” Chris mumbled. “For the exam.”

“What’s wrong with them?” he sat near him on the couch, turning the tv on for background noise. 

“Nothing,” he answered. There was nothing wrong with them. It wasn’t the notes that were wrong. “I failed.” 

“Oh…” Felix voiced out, genuinely surprised. “How is that possible?” 

Chris shrugged. 

“I mean…” Felix started again. “With your brain and all.” 

“It was more of an artistic one,” he said and through them on the table, next to the beer. “It doesn’t matter. 

“It does matter, Chris,” Felix said softly. “But don’t worry about it. You’re going to retake it. You’re going to do better.”

“It was an important one,” Chris said, opening up about his disappointment. Why was everything going to hell lately? 

“You’ll find a way,” he said and gave him a comforting smile. “You always do.” 

The teacher was strict, so would he really be willing to give him another chance? Chris wasn’t sure about it. But it would be too disappointing to fail now. He was always a good student, he knew he shouldn’t give up now.

“Just open the beer, dude,” Chris said. Felix chuckled and fulfilled his demand.

“Hey, what does college matter to you anyway? You could do anything,” he said, probably just to light up his mood.

Chris snorted. 

“You sound like Seungmin.”

Felix didn’t answer for a while, pondering about God knows what. Then he spoke up again. 

“I didn’t want to interfere, but… I’ve always wondered about one thing,” he said. “You say he always pressures you to become a scientist, right? To change the world.”

“Yup,” Chris confirmed. “That’s all Seungmin does.”

“But you don’t want to… Why?”

Chris finally took one of the beer cans that Felix had opened and took a gulp. Was there even a point to talk about this? Could Felix understand? Seungmin never did. 

“Look at us, Lix,” he started. “We have endless potential as a society, don’t we?”

“I guess so?” Felix answered, confused. 

“And what do we do? We poison the oceans and drown the world in plastic.” He took another sip. “I don’t want to be a part of that.” 

“But… maybe you could help?” 

“Don’t get me wrong, but it’s a bit childish to think that,” Chris said. “Do you think that if the world knew about my abilities, I could make any decision on my own?” He gave him a moment to process that. “I’d be their tool, Lix. And everything I’d do for the good of this planet, they would turn against it.”

Felix had nothing to add to that. Chris didn’t know if he agreed with him, but for sure he didn’t want to argue about it. Chris really didn’t like this topic. He always knew that his super-intelligence was only there to turn his life to shit. 

For some time they were just drinking in silence, Felix not knowing what to say and Chris not feeling like talking. Then, Chris spoke up again. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, and it was so sudden that it made even him surprised. “The way I acted lately… It wasn’t okay, I’m really sorry about it,” he saw Felix opening his mouth to say something, but he didn’t allow it. “No, don’t say it’s nothing. Just accept it.”

It was unfair of him to put all his shitty emotions, all his hurt on his friends. He knew this from the very beginning, but somehow he wasn’t able to stop it. That must end now. He must finally get his shit together. 

Felix was looking at him for a few seconds before he finally nodded and gave him a reassuring smile. 

Chris sighed silently. 

He had a few more apologies to make. 

  
  
  
  
  


After some time, his health finally seemed to be getting better. He felt stronger, more healthy. He even examined his body in the mirror once. His ribs weren’t so visible now. He was still pale, but it was typical for him, it was just his characteristic. Pale or not, now his skin tone looked healthier too. 

He was trying hard, and he finally found his balance. He was eating more, and he controlled himself not to skip his meals. He even slept a bit better now. The change wasn’t any spectacular, for he always struggled with sleep, but he was sure it’ll keep getting better. 

He apologised to all the friends that he hurt recently. His contact with them finally came back to normal. They talked, they laughed. Everything went back to normal. 

He healed. He was sure that he healed. 

  
  
  
  
  


It was a long time since Chris last cleaned his flat. Besides all of his notes usually lying everywhere around, he wasn’t that much of a messy person. Therefore, he never really felt the need to clean. All of his things got quite dusty, though, so as long as he wanted to, he couldn’t keep running away from it. 

Just as he was about to brush the floor, he noticed something lying on it. It was right next to the wall, under his desk. He got on his knees to pick it up, not sure what it was and how it got there. 

When he finally reached it and gave it a look, for a few moments, it couldn’t get to him what it was. 

He stared at it blankly. A red lipstick, so simple and so stupid. 

He was sitting on the floor, holding the damned lipstick in his hand, as if it was so precious. He noticed a tear dropping on his jeans, leaving a single wet spot there. He touched his face as if he didn’t believe he was crying and noticed that indeed it was wet. 

But he wasn’t hurt, he thought it wasn’t it. 

He was thinking about the talk he had with Felix a few weeks ago, some time before he apologised to him.

“Everything is a lie, my whole life. It’s just pretending,” he said then, and Felix furrowed his eyebrows. 

“I’m disappointed in you,” Felix answered, and his facial expression showed that he really was. “I never thought you’d be the person to care so much about how people see you.” 

He didn’t get what he meant. 

“Think about it, Chris,” he added. “What’s more important? The world seen with your eyes, or you, seen by the eyes of others?”

Felix didn’t want to make any decisions for him, he didn’t want to persuade him to do anything. That’s why he stayed out of this. But with this one, he told him everything that he thought about it. Chris regretted he couldn’t see it sooner.

He didn’t understand what he meant then. He got it now. 

He stood up from the ground and wiped his cheeks. He gave the lipstick one more glance before he put it back in the drawer, where was its place. 

He finally healed. And he finally knew what he wanted. 

He closed his eyes. He needed a few moments to calm down. He wasn’t sure if his eyes won’t betray him in a moment, he really didn’t want to break down in tears again. He took a deep breath. One, and then one more. Slowly he opened his eyes and lifted his head. 

Jisung was standing a few steps from him, taking shaking breaths, his eyes were already shining with tears. He looked scared, not sure what was going to happen, and Chris couldn’t blame him. He wondered if time passes the same way for him, as it does for Chris. Judging from some of the stories of his projections, he would say that yes. So after all that time, Jisung still cared the same. 

“You’re a liar,” he said calmly. This one was bothering him for way too long not to say it. 

“Hyung, I am so sorry,” he said with a voice as shaky as his breath. “I wanted to tell you, you know I did… I tried to tell you…” 

‘Hyung’. It was a long time since he heard this one. It made him realise how stupid he was. Did he really think he wasn’t able to learn Korean? He must have done it when he first tried and be too stubborn to even notice. He knew Korean, he was even speaking it now. At least he did when Jisung was around. He just couldn’t notice. 

Chris nodded, accepting Jisung’s words. After all, he was a liar too. He too couldn’t tell him about his own secret. He thought Jisung was real, but he never told him about his state, about the way his mind works. He couldn’t blame him for being unable to say it, they were just the same. 

“Your anxiety…” he started. “You weren’t scared of people, you were scared I’d notice they can’t see you.” 

“It was both,” Jisung mumbled ashamed. 

Thinking about this, Chris believed him. After all, his attempt to learn Korean happened months before he met Jisung. For sure, he was in his head all this time, but he must have been too frightened to approach. He also couldn’t blame him for this one. 

“You realise...” he said quietly, his tone sad. “Things between us can never be truly real… I will never introduce you to my friends or family. When I take you out to see a movie, people will want to sit in your place. When I talk to you in public people will stare. When I try to kiss you… Well, I won’t even comment on that one.” 

Jisung’s tears finally rolled down his face. Even so broken and tired, he still looked so pretty. Chris missed his face, even when he tried to deny it, he missed his face so much. 

“But if you kiss me, you can feel it,” he said through his tears. “If you touch me, if you hold my hand you can feel it... If you make love to me, you can feel it.”

Chris knew it was true. All this time he wouldn’t even guess Jisung wasn’t real. He felt like everybody else, just so much better. But all that needed to be said, all that had to be done. There was no other way. 

Finally, he approached him slowly. Jisung was hesitant, not knowing what Chris wanted to do. When he was close to him, he realised how much he missed him, his smell, his warmth, everything. He extended his hand and put it on Jisung’s cheek, wiping his tears down. 

“Don’t cry, baby,” he whispered, placing a soft kiss on his other cheek, stopping another tear from falling. “Don’t cry anymore.” 

Somehow, it made Jisung cry even harder. But Chris knew it was needed too, all those tears, it had to happen too. Finally, he took him in his arms and embraced him as tightly as he could. He let him cry, he gave him as much time as he wanted. Holding him in his arms, it was warm, it was soft, it was real to him, no matter what people would say. 

He finally knew everything was going to be alright. 


End file.
